New(s)

A former student and I have been going back and forth on Facebook about how things have changed for us academically since last semester. I've started a new job at a new school and she's started a new major. Trying to describe how much things have changed, though, made me think seriously about how they haven't. Of course, there are the obvious things: I go to department meetings now, write course descriptions, work on curricular planning, and students call me "doctor." These are new, sure. But I've always had to balance teaching with an array of other responsibilities, like research, writing, and planning for the next semester. Part of me always thought that once I got a job I'd be so swamped in trying to get tenure, teaching, and whatever else the department threw at me that my life would be unrecognizable.

But that's just not the case. If I learned anything in graduate school it was productivity by way of procrastination. Which is to say, if I can't work on "x," then I'll work on "a," "b," or "c." When I simply can't look at the article I'm trying to revise for publication anymore, then I do some functional things - write observation protocols, or look up writers to invite to campus, whatever needs to be done. I strike a rhythm with my work that reminds me a lot of what it was like writing a dissertation, then switching over to teaching once I couldn't look at that chapter anymore, then switching over to some committee work when I couldn't grade anymore papers. I find dwelling on the familiar parts helps me approach all the new stuff with excitement, even inspiration. It's weird.

What's So Critical About Music?

A very wise writing professor once told me, "Its easy. Just write the stuff you'd want to read." Right, easy. Similarly, as a teacher, I find myself often trying to shape courses that I'd want to take. A lot more difficult than one would imagine. And yet Byron Hawk makes it look easy. This course seems to offer critical and literary analysis in a way my students here at MC have indicated as not just cool or fun, but as necessary and relevant - to the increasing ways in which rhetoric bleeds into our daily lives. As it does in music. Props to Hawk.

Persepolis

Well, while I draft this Radiohead chapter, I've also been working on getting syllabi for next semester started - and I have to say: I'm seriously excited. I'll be teaching First Year Writing and using the graphic novel Persepolis as a way to talk about the course's theme: displacement. I've already got a number of ideas floating around - I think I'm going to use Scott McCloud's *Understanding Comics* to get discussions of form under way and a number of political pieces to supplement content and get discussions of academic writing off the ground - but I was wondering if any of you wonderful readers out there have taught Persepolis (or any graphic novel) and might have some helpful pointers or texts that you've used with success.

Pop Goes Philosophy

So Open Court Press has a "Philosophy and Pop Culture Series" that takes various parts of pop culture (hip-hop, The Simpsons, The Matrix, etc.) and recruits writers to write in an accessible way about how that part of pop culture speaks to philosophical issues. They have an upcoming Radiohead and Philosophy volume coming up and I'm very proud to say that I'll be included in it! I'll be writing about the way the band disfigures the human voice in Kid A (through the manipulation of human voice samples) and, in doing so, recruits inarticulation in order to speak out of and about the recording technologies that shape expression. I can't wait!

Finally, years of listening to Radiohead pays off. ;)

There Will Be Manhattan

I know this is coming a bit late, but after months of job-market anxieties and, well, all those things people write about along side job-market anxieties, I'm *very* happy to say that I'll be joining the English Department at Manhattan College this fall as assistant professor of English and Director of Composition. This was *just* the job I wanted and the folks in the Department were just the sort of people I hoped they would be: warm, supportive, curious, and excited. I really couldn't be happier. Steph and I have already made plans to sublet for our first year in NYC and things are beginning to fall in place.

On realizing that we would be moving to New York, our first order of business was to say to each other, nearly in unison: "we get to sell our car!" Then we went to see *There Will Be Blood* and relished in our first step toward curing our own addiction to oil. (We also relished in the brilliance of Daniel Day-Lewis and found ourselves wanting milkshakes...)