“an audience that didn’t include me in the first place.” Toni Morrison is not my favorite author, but i believe it was she who said something along with “you write the things you want to read.” — the implication that the things she wanted to read had not been there.

i talk about the “dead white men” — and call them that — in my lit classes. i explain why i don’t like teaching them, and avoid it as much as possible.

i truly never expected to see a lit class’s (and at the place i’m teaching, no less) eyes literally light up and get into urban fairytale stuff discussing China Mieville and King Rat. they love it, for the most part, which consistently amazes me — but i guess it shouldn’t, because i do, too.

i think the kind of thing you’re saying here is exactly what makes you as good a teacher and researcher as you are. you refuse to color in everyone else’s lines, just because it’s what they think should happen.

you’re creating your own lines with what you’re doing, and in the end, i think that’s what true intellectuals do.

“I trust my own instincts more than I do people who write to an audience that didn’t include me in the first place.” is a line far more insightful than the quote you opened with. It’s good. Thanks!