Classes

Classes began this week.

I'm taking two courses this semester, which is still considered Full Time, because of the amount of work expected in those courses and the other work (researching and writing a thesis, for example) that goes with being a grad student.

Both of these courses (like virtually all graduate courses) are seminars, which means that instead of the professor telling us everything about book history, the professor assigns books which everyone reads and then we have a lively, three-hour-long guided discussion. Typically each student leads at least one of these discussions, which means that on your day to lead a seminar you need to really know the text so that you can ask all the important questions.

My first class is Bibliography, taught by my advisor. Bibliography, for those who don't know, is basically the study of books as objects. I took a course a lot like this at CMU, called "History of the Book" (Hot-B).

This class happens in the back of the library, in by far the nicest classroom I've ever seen at U of M. The chairs are all cushy, with wheels, and the arms move up and down.

It's going to be an interesting class, in both good ways and maybe bad ways too. I'm very interested in the way the material, physical object of a book affects the way we think about things, so that will be cool. But the first class we had a discussion that to me felt more like "Man, kids don't write letters anymore" than anything academically worthwhile. Which was a little frustrating.

The prof, is brilliant, friendly, encouraging and gentle. And maybe that keeps him from saying "No, you're wrong and dumb." Or maybe not, we'll see.

My second class, is called "Writing the City", and it's a Canadian Lit course about cities and the way they get portrayed in literature, and how that affects the way they are in the world. It is going to be an fascinating class, if a little unorthodox.

The professor is a semi-famous Winnipeg author (famous enough that Jan, working in the library had heard of him, not so famous that I had). He's hairy and witty and full of stories about Winnipeg.

For instance, I learned on Wednesday that the first mayor of Winnipeg was the founder of Harlequin books, the largest publishing label to this day. Who knew?

One of the assignments for that class is to take a walk around an area of Winnipeg, and then write about it.

Neat.