Academic Garamond serif. Footnotes, references, slow argument.
Recent Articles
In Defence of the Long Way Round1
A student once wrote 'relevance?' beside my best digression. This is my reply: an essay with notes on why the wandering argument is not a failure of the straight one.
Teaching a Text Twice2
This term I taught a short poem I had taught ten years ago. The poem had not changed. Everything else had, and the gap between the two seminars taught me more than either.
Marginalia From a Borrowed Copy3
I borrowed a secondhand copy of a book and found a stranger's pencil all through it. Reading their notes, I learned more about the book, and about readers, than the text itself taught.
A Defence of the Commonplace Book4
A notebook of other people's sentences sounds like a lazy hobby. I have kept one for twenty years and I think it is the best teacher I have had. Here is the defence.