Weekend + 1

A student's father suggests that these children symbolize 福,禄,寿

Report on three days of activity.

Over the weekend I worked too little, as I might have predicted. I did, however, get my final exam and final weekly assignment written for "Writing Lives in China." I noted that sitting at the computer on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon is not so good -- it makes me feel like I can spend some time working and some time surfing the web, which is the classical problem of divided attention.

I also finished Girl Rebel: The Autobiography of Hsieh Ping-ying (1940). That took longer than it should have, but I have a feeling that few readers get to the end of the volume. In my lecture on Monday, I began fleshing out a contrast between on the one hand Xie Bingying's non-ironic, earnest call for revolution and a new society and on the other hand Yang Jiang's ironic questioning of that new society once it had been put in place. More to come out of this -- I think I'm closer than ever to a discussion of Six Chapters that highlights its true literary and historical significance.

Also began reading Culler's Literary Theory: A Brief Insight (aka Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction) which is excellent preparation for teaching theory to my future ALL 4900W students. The syllabus for that course is really taking shape now.

More grading to do, but I feel more like reading.