Reflections on Autonomy and Literary Experience

1.   "Toward" or "towards":
I always figured that if I could get through 13.5 years of Berkeley higher ed without knowing the exact rule, then there must not be an exact rule and I would let euphony be my guide.

2.  Trying to teach the mix of discipline and independence -- necessary and resolute discipline in thought and knowledge, boneheaded and clear-eyed independence of thought and knowledge -- that I absorbed before, during, and after my years at UCB . . . that's hard.  I've modeled it as much as possible, but I still have not quite found a way.

I don't always live up to my model either, though I do try.

I sometimes think crucial key components include a repressive childhood, strong individualistic modeling (thanks, mom & dad), and lucky genetics (the boneheadedness, for example).  At other times, I think a devotion to the idea (and ideal) of literary apprenticeship is necessary.

Of course, in my main teaching duties, my focus is on awakening and honing the skills of critical reading, critical writing, and critical thinking, which is a different path than the literary one I referred to above.  Such awakening and honing is a joyous thing, too, by the way.

3.  What depressed me the most during my long years of graduate study was what seemed to me to be the suppression of the original text and, more so, the actual literary experience in favor of something decidedly secondary.  Ideally, and practically, such study enhances the ability to experience literature in the fullest sense -- and I give credit and thanks to certain professors and colleagues to this day for their part in the true way (or ways, for there are different paths to explore) -- but I also watched other professors and other colleagues who turned away from literary truth toward something -- or some things -- not so worthy . . . .

Exploration's Joy

When I first found and read Charles De Lint's "The Little Country" back in grad school--on the heels of De Lint's "Dreams Underfoot"--it felt as if I were rediscovering the best aspects of play and treasure-hunting and discovery itself. I was having a fine time as a Renaissance / Medieval / Restoration / Neoclassic / Romantic specialist--I kept changing my fields, for I'm a hungry and ambitious generalist at heart--but I was spending my days and nights bearing down perhaps too hard as a student, as a researcher, and not as the learner, as the adult-child, as the explorer that I am most at home being. I relearned to refresh my professional studies with such spirited and generous storytelling--and to bring such spirit and generosity to my professional duties in the classroom and in the carrel.

Study Pal

Study Break