Over the past month or so I've tweeted about my senior seminar for English majors, and several people were interested in the course, so I'm posting a version of the reading schedule here. In many ways, it's experimental, driven by my interest in theorizing "the global Middle Ages," and I'm tackling some works of literature … Continue reading Medieval World Literature Senior Seminar
Category: Teaching
Antichrist in HEL
This semester I'm teaching a History of the English Language course, and it's offering no end to delights in my life. I taught a HEL course only once before, as a two-semester grad seminar, with about 10 students. My course this semester is a 400-level undergraduate class with 22 students. So this time around is … Continue reading Antichrist in HEL
How I #KeepJoyInScholarship on the Tenure Track
When my friends Micah Goodrich, Bre Leake, and I came up with the #KeepJoyInScholarship hashtag on Twitter, I was fairly new to my job. I was in my first semester of my first year at Rhode Island College, after a year as a teaching post-doc, and I was learning to navigate life as a tenure-track … Continue reading How I #KeepJoyInScholarship on the Tenure Track
Teaching Writing for the Public
Last summer, I participated in a week-long Summer Seminar on the Teaching of Writing (SSTW) hosted through our campus Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. The Seminar has continued in some ways, as our group of faculty have met twice a semester to share how we've been implementing some of our ideas into our classes. … Continue reading Teaching Writing for the Public
Reflecting on the Significance of Studying the Middle Ages
Several weeks ago, Kisha Tracy (at Fitchburg State U and co-founder of the MASSMedieval blog) sent out a message soliciting fellow medievalists to share some of our ideas about what we value as the significance of studying the Middle Ages (that link will take you to her own post about this). She set up a public Facebook group for … Continue reading Reflecting on the Significance of Studying the Middle Ages
Teaching with Lego
Recently, because of my new commute, I found and have been listening to the backlog of episodes of the WNYC podcast Note to Self (formerly New Tech City). According to the show's website, "Host Manoush Zomorodi talks with everyone from big name techies to elementary school teachers about the effects of technology on our lives, in a quest for the smart choices … Continue reading Teaching with Lego
Teaching Anglo-Saxon Science
By now, the news of the Anglo-Saxon recipe that kills modern day superbug MRSA is old (find a good article on it here). When news hit the internet a few weeks ago, my social media was buzzing with medievalists proud to point out the relevance of our work. I first found out about it because Judy (my … Continue reading Teaching Anglo-Saxon Science
What Have Manuscripts to Do with HEL?
This semester I had the pleasure of teaching a graduate seminar on "The History of the English Language" (from beginnings up to the early modern period), and it has led me to all sorts of useful reflections on language and history. Foremost, I have my students to thank for such an exciting and engaging seminar--and next semester I get … Continue reading What Have Manuscripts to Do with HEL?
First-Day Catullus
This summer, I've been creating a syllabus and preparing for one of the courses that I'm teaching this fall, World Literature I: Ancient through Early Modern. The syllabus can be found here, and I've decided to use the The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Package 1: Beginnings to 1650 (vols. A, B, C), since it has great breadth … Continue reading First-Day Catullus
Brandon W. Hawk 