Welcome Back

by   |  08.23.09  |  Announcement

I hope all of you arrived safely back in Abilene. I think I’m finished with our course site (for now). Come on in and look around. The Syllabus and the Schedule will probably be the best place to begin since they should clarify how the other pieces will fit into our work together.

TEXTBOOK: Probably the most important first step is to find a copy of Gulliver’s Travels. We’ll mainly be reading Book 1 and 4, so if you still have an anthology from Major British Writers, you probably have the book already. Otherwise, the Campus Store has a dozen copies for my ENGL 495, so feel free to pick up one of those. Our colloquium will meet the end of the third week of school, so we’ve got a great deal to do in the next few weeks. Talk to me immediately if you have textbook troubles, and I’ll see if I can find an extra copy.

Sometime this week, come on into the class blog and look around a little. Before we begin Gulliver, I’m asking you to post a short introduction to the Class Introductions discussion thread in the sidebar. You’ll respond to several questions. No one will be marking your responses up with a red pen (we’ll save that for later!), but this will give me a chance to begin to connect names and faces.

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*Before you post, I’m asking you to Add Your Own Avatar. This profile photo will appear on class blogs, so please choose a mugshot that helps us (mainly me) connect names with faces. (For information about gravatars, see ACU Blogs.)

I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of “laughing until it hurts,” so this semester perhaps we can make some sense of the curious territory between pleasure and pain, between comedy and critique. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.