25 Oct 2009 1 Comment
While all of China took to the road and celebrated its 60th anniversary with a week long celebration I ducked out of the country for a quick trip to Billings, Montana. The Rocky Mountain College Physician Assistant program had invited me for interview. Though I was already missing teaching English literature and drama to my(…)
17 Oct 2009 No Comments
I’ve been procrastinating. A recent trip to Montana left me in a swoon. Now it was just a Movable Feast. But I needed to get back on track and prepare a lecture on American Romanticism & New England Transcendentalism. As I wrote this students were reading excerpts from The Scarlet Letter, The Raven, Song of(…)
14 Oct 2009 No Comments
I asked a Chinese professor at the university if a foreigner has ever taught Western drama to college seniors. He said he had never heard of it. A check on Google reveals nothing. I believe I am the first, which is quite an honor. This may be the result of students clamoring for more than(…)
01 Oct 2009 No Comments
I describe the government-issued anthology textbook for Chinese Students. It is good, but has the obvious deficiency of containing only snippets of the greater works. A story by Steinbeck, for example, has only one chapter. So this is just one reason why I began the semester with an allegorical novel about following your dreams.
01 Oct 2009 No Comments
With the fast pace of growth in China and its emphasis on modernism, I wonder if my students will one day come to appreciate Thoreau’s ideals, especially his love of nature and his concern for the environment.
