as the semester opens in chapel hill, i find myself sitting in the public library in my hometown thinking how lovely it feels to finally -- for the first time in nine years -- have a semester free of teaching. i'm shocked by how much more i enjoy the writing and working on the dissertation when i'm not overwhelmed by preparing classes, grading papers, answering the needs of students. i supposed this must be why professors love and need sabbaticals so much. it also reminds me that my department needs to make dissertation funding a priority for students trying to finish. and while i had been really looking forward to teaching an Alcott class next spring, i'm beginning to feel like playing hookie is even better.

my time in the UP -- that's the Upper Peninsula for all you midwestern neophytes -- was wonderfully productive and i finally (after a pathetic year of pulling out my hair) came to see my project much more clearly. in fact, i think i finally reached an awareness of my work that i suspect my committee has believed that i've had all along. the easiest way to articulate this breakthrough is to say that i realized the limitations of didactic readings of 19th cen. texts (i'll ultimately argue that in didactic texts the content of the lessons trumps the form of teaching) and realized that alcott (along with my other figures) is far less interested in lessons as such and much more invested in methodology or pedagogy. After all, method can be translated broadly whereas particularized right feelings cannot be. I'm now working through this process of reading Little Men against the sentimental, didactic grain, which means concentrating my attention on its trope of reading lessons. It has meant that I needed to entirely rewrite my chapter (and ultimately toss out 95% of my year's research), but this seems like the right decision. so for now, the plan is to avoid chapel hill until the heat passes and until i complete this project (which i hope to do in the next week). and then make a quick trip to north carolina to drop off the pooch, meet with the adviser, and finalize plans for a research trip to boston in october.