All Posts
Memo & Margin
Academic Garamond serif. Footnotes, references, slow argument.
digression
In Defence of the Long Way Round
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
Teaching a Text Twice
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
Marginalia From a Borrowed Copy
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.
commonplace-book
A Defence of the Commonplace Book
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.
footnotes
The Footnote as Conversation
We treat the footnote as housekeeping, a place for sources and small apologies. I think it is closer to a murmured aside across a seminar table. An argument, with notes.
reading
On Reading Slowly
Every term I ask students to read fifteen pages in a week and every term they ask why so few. A lecturer's case for the unhurried reader, and what slowness actually buys.