$700 on books and a rad classroom
I just visited my classroom that I start teaching in on Monday. It’s the sweetest classroom I’ve ever taught in, in the Life Sciences Building, which obviously gets more money than the English dept’s building. The set up is nice, though I am concerned about the way desks and computers are arranged so that students sit in rows and face their screens constantly. There will definitely be negotiation around attention. (By negotiation, I don’t mean give and take, but more discussion and paying attention to where attention goes — a discussion that will fit right in with our theme of technology and culture.) The Life Sciences Building is beautiful, and I’m excited to see how the course goes.
I also just bought my textbooks for next term. Well, my textbooks plus a few other rhetoric, theory, and feminist books I saw for other courses. All told expenses: about $700. I should just write down what books I need and want and order them online, but I still have an attachment to bookstores and the immediacy of buying the book and the newness of books. Plus, I’m not a “digital native.” I think the first thing I bought online was in 2000 or something, which made me 20 before I engaged in this type of activity. No, I still like the tactile (and immediate) gratification of having the book in my hands and flipping through them.
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I like the feel of the books, too, which is why I often check them out from the library first to see if I really want/need to buy them. I’ve saved a little money that way and it makes me think about whether or not a text is something I really want/need for my professional library. Of course, I tend to buy them online then (if they are cheaper that way).
Post a photo! I want to see what you got. I, too, loved buying books at the start of the quarter/semester. I’m auditing a class at NYU this semester that doesn’t have books, but I plan to hit the store at some point and browse.
Yeah for attention to attention, whether mediated or not!