Organizing My Interests

May 31, 2007

Tomorrow is my last class for the year here at Lawrence. There is still plenty of grading to do.. so I won't say that I feel like I have arrived at summer yet. But still.. the last class of my first year at Lawrence is worth noting.

I have been reflecting some on the nature of the academic path:

Grad school has a certain rhythm. I entered and then started taking classes with professors who opened up new areas of knowledge. The first few years involved more or less constant exploration of new ideas and thinkers.. then as the dissertation set in there was a point where that expansion had to get culled back so that I could finish my work. My reading needed to shadow the subjects taken up in the dissertation.

Dissertation completed I felt free to work on whatever I wanted. I knew there would be a second project that in time would take the place of the dissertation, but that would all now be more under my own control. What I did not reckon on is how the specific classes I teach here at Lawrence would help to define my new areas of interest. As I set books into my Amazon.com cart, it is often to strengthen my knowledge in areas that I plan on teaching someday.. or to nail down an issue that I feel I may have fumbled in a class. Since the classes I am now teaching will get repeated regularly, they become cyclical points in the extended academic calendar at which I must return to these topics.. each time adding a new book.

The upshot of this is that my set of classes will come to define the topics I will continue to push forward as a scholar. Some interests of mine are bound to fade as they fail to find a place in my teaching schedule. This also means what courses exactly I choose to develop has immense importance for me in the long term. These are now my topics. And this is not a deck of cards that will be reshuffled when I finish my dissertation. this may be my permanent deck of cards.

In the summer I plan on making a diagram to visually set down my interest areas.. which I will certainly post here..