Starting last Saturday, I began chronicling just what I do every day – in an effort to make visible the (usually invisible) work that academics do.  Now that this week-long experiment has concluded, I am glad to take your questions. Q: 62 hours! Was that more or less than you expected? A: I honestly had
Yes, this week-long series is coming to an end today. Â This is the final installment in my attempt – via a brief autobiographical account of my daily activities – to explain precisely how academics spend their days. Â Tomorrow, I’ll offer some reflections on life in the panopticon & answer any questions you may have. Â But
As noted on day one and on subsequent days, the purpose of this self-indulgent chronicle is, via a daily log, to explain the job of a professor. So, it is with a mixture of pleasure and chagrin that the management of this blog welcomes you to… Thursday, 24 Feb. 2011 11:45 pm (Weds.) – 3:15
Welcome to the fifth installment of navel-gazing with aspirations. Â As noted on day one, the attempt here is to make academic work visible. Â Thus: welcome to the day that some call the middle of the week. Â (If one works on weekends, do weeks have middles? Â Do they have beginnings? Â Do they ever end?) Wednesday, 23
Continuing my mix of narcissism and public service, I bring you day 4 in this week-long series of just what in the heck a college professor does with his or her time. Â I hope the “public service” element is winning out over the “narcissism” element, but I have my doubts. Â Anyhow, here is… Tuesday, 22
Continuing this quixotic exercise, here is the third entry (of seven) chronicling One Week in the Life of an English Professor (hi, there!). Â As noted on the first post, the goal is to make visible just what the heck it is someone like me actually does. Â Such labor was invisible to me when I was
In which we continue the experiment started yesterday – blogging (for this week only) precisely how I spend my time as a Professor of English at Kansas State University. One goal is to demystify exactly what it is that professors do. Sunday, 20 Feb. 2011. 12:35 – 7:55 am. Â Asleep 7:55 – 8:10 am. Â Checked
Since it’s fashionable in some quarters to attack state employees as lazy (Hello, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker!), I am – for this coming week only – blogging about precisely how I spend my time, as a Professor of English at Kansas State University. Â I’m also doing this because, when I was an undergraduate, I had
As I wait to hear back from my editor (latest revision submitted January 1st), I continue to tinker with the biography of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss. Does my manuscript’s silence on the homosexuality of two important figures – Maurice Sendak (who illustrated nine of Ruth’s books) and Ursula Nordstrom (editor of Ruth, Dave, Maurice) –
Following the deaths this month of Brian Jacques, Janet Schulman, and Margaret K. McElderry, we turn to the last words of those who wrote for the young – Seuss, Dahl, Thurber, Montgomery, Nesbit, Charles M. Schulz, Crockett Johnson, and others. “Yes. I’m not going to die tomorrow.” – Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991) “Ow,