[This week marks the start of the Fall semester, and my 22nd year at Fitchburg State. So as usual, a semester previews blog series to go with it, leading up to a special post on some of my latest scholarly projects!]
Last Fall I had the chance to teach my Honors Literature Seminar on America in the Gilded Age for the first time in a while, and this Fall I’m fortunate enough to get to do so again. Every time I do so, I think more about the manifold ways our period echoes that late 19th century one; as a decided Second Gilded Age, yes (let’s just say that the comparisons haven’t become less apt in the 15 years since I wrote that post), but in countless other complex and crucial connections as well. As I’ve written about in previous posts on this course, I’ve become significantly less shy about raising those comparisons, not to share my own perspective on them but rather to help students think through such comparative lenses and analyses. And that’s the note I most want to hit when it comes to this class, and all those I’ll be teaching in this 22nd Fall semester at FSU—the reason the work doesn’t get old is that the student ideas remain new and fresh each and every time. Can’t beat that!
Next preview tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What’s coming up with y’all?
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