Monday, January 6, 2014

Warming up to '14

Seems like I've yet to greet the new year...

Well, I'm back from Florida, teaching a three-week public speaking course, and dreaming of a swell 2014. David Terry and I are burrowing through revisions of our DPRK essay, and I have hopes that an internationally co-authored book project is finally coming to fruition. This year's travel plans range from Baton Rouge to Finland (with a possible side trip to St. Petersburg, Russia). Of course I'll also be tackling new lecture projects for the honors humanities program. This semester's topics:

  • Industrial Society: Capitalism and its Radical Critics
  • American Transcendentalism and the Beginnings of Environmentalism
  • The Depression, the New Deal, and pre-World War II America
  • Totalitarianism and World War II: the Holocaust and Inhumanity in the 20th Century
  • Modern and Post-Modern Art
  • Equal Protection of the Law: Excluded Voices and the Rhetoric of Multicultural America
  • Vietnam, Watergate, American Politics and Society

I presented the arts lecture during my last sabbatical; all the others will be written new from scratch. As ever, I anticipate a constant hybrid of exhaustion and exuberance. Building these presentations will draw from time I'd otherwise devote to blogging - but the results, I hope, will be worth the hassle.

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