Here I am in the middle of summer 2022, looking back on another challenging year of teaching during a global pandemic while enjoying a period of intellectual energy and physical/mental restoration. The image shows some of the research I’ve embarked on for the summer, part of a larger project that explores the ways that a distinctly transimperial feminism developed through aesthetic and cultural exchange between England and colonial India.

In May I attended the British Women Writers Conference in Waco, TX. It was so lovely to meet in person, to dust off my social networking skills and engage more deeply with folks’ during and after their presentations. This fall, I look forward to teaching Children’s Literature and a general education seminar on English detective fiction. As usual, I’m reading for pleasure this summer, as well, and enjoying every minute I can with my family, friends, and neighbors. I recently heard a rabbi deliver the sermon at an Episcopal church, and he quoted Dr. Prinz’s speech from the March on Washington: “Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept.” As the war on women’s bodies endures, as the invasion of Ukraine continues, as the glaciers keep melting, this seems more and more important to recall.