I feel smart

I’m teaching advanced literary theory right now, with a focus on postcolonialism. Of course, that means by default I also teach a lot theory about power, Marxist criticism, structuralism, and so on. It’s a microscopic class size, which is very cool, and means it’s more of a graduate style class than not. Anyhow, I’ve not taught it for a little while and I forgot a) how much I love it and b) how smart I feel when I read this stuff and we can discuss it.

Theory is really hard. It’s obscure, uses a lot of jargon, and gives many people a headache. But I still love it! I love talking hegemony, epistemology, ontology, ideology and the way colonization happened/continues to happen. I like talking about power structures and how power flows. We talk about how to apply things to literature, but also look at culture and talk politics, movies, history . . . I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying this. Plus my students ask smart questions and make smart connections.

Sometimes, despite certain job toxicities, the teaching is so worth it.