Why subscribe to Syllabus?
“Honey, life is just a classroom” -“New Romantics,” by Taylor Swift
Whenever I talk to someone at a party, they leave the conversation with a reading list. Syllabus is that list - except you don’t have to put on real pants or walk out your front door to get it.
In the years since I graduated with my PhD in English literature and started working in university communications, I have desperately missed being in the classroom: both as the teacher and as the student. At their best, classrooms are ephemeral spaces of connection and magic, where people encounter each other with openness and vulnerability, and ideas can collide and spark and ignite.
Though some students and teachers dread it, I have always loved syllabus day. What is a syllabus, anyway, but an itinerary for a trip you’re about to take through a special topic, whether it’s about medieval architecture or the ethics of time travel?
Now that I’m not teaching anymore, I frequently find myself reading a book or watching an episode of a TV show and thinking Man, I wish that I could include this in a class. Conversely, sometimes I get stuck on a topic (public libraries! Mother’s Day! underwear!) or an idea (radical hospitality! defiant hope!) and wish I could curate a unit or an entire class about it.
This newsletter is my attempt to do just that. Each week, I share a curated collection of writing, art, ideas, and ephemera around a common theme I’ve been thinking about lately, delivered just in time for your weekend. You’ll find YouTube video essays alongside Romantic-era poetry and podcast episodes about Dungeons and Dragons alongside deep dives into theistic existentialism.
Ideally, every episode will encourage you to make new connections and introduce you to something you might not have encountered yet. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, then subscribe below. Welcome to our classroom!
Check out some of my all-time favorite posts here:
ON: Weird Communication Challenges
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