My semester as a student started today (as a teacher: last week). Here's this semester's line-up:

Postcolonial Poetics: Introduces students to the poetics of postcolonial literature, with an emphasis on poetry. We will evaluate current theories of the past 20 years on the politics and aesthetics of postcolonial creative writing. Our common mandate is to unlock the issue of whether a universal -- or in Paul Gilroy’s words, "planetary" -- ethics emerges from postcolonial poetics and the extent to which postcolonial poetics can elucidate and transform dominant culture. Our poetry readings are comprised primarily, not exclusively, of African diasporic works.

Poetic Form: An advanced level seminar designed for students with significant experience writing and reading poetry. The course will be a combination workshop and seminar. Students who have not had at least one graduate level workshop may find it difficult to keep up with this class.

My collateral field for the PhD(15 hrs) will be Russian history and art and language (in hopes to gain a context for my budding interest in OBERIU). My first course:

Russia: The 19th & 20th Centuries: Themes of the course: the contrasts and contradictions of Imperial Russia (St. Petersburg v. Moscow, reform v. reaction, rural peasant life v. emerging urban and industrial society), idealism and pragmatic brutality of the Russian Revolution, the Leninist-Stalinist programs and legacy, attempts at reform and the eventual dissolution of the USSR. The focus will be on internal political, social, and cultural developments rather than foreign policy.

In other news: Octopus #7 should be up tonight or tomorrow, barring any setbacks.