Posts by Spencer Hawkins

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Posts by Spencer Hawkins

Why GEO Matters to Me

April 16, 2013 | By Spencer Hawkins, Ph.D. Student, Comparative Literature

In previous posts, I have made it clear how grateful I am to the people with whom I work and the programs with which I engage at U-M. I also appreciate that the university is able to attract such brilliant and hard-working scholars and to provide us with outstanding resources for non-classroom learning. I have benefited, for instance, from travel grants and conference funding, and learned tons from brilliant people at CRLT and Sweetland about teaching and writing respectively. The motor behind all of this, I am convinced, is the commitment of our university’s administrators to discerning which teaching and…

Published in: Student Voices

Book Review of Graduate Study for the 21st Century

March 7, 2013 | By Spencer Hawkins, Ph.D. Student, Comparative Literature

When we read books with “how to” in the title, we generally want the reading to end quickly and with efficient results. We would rather be able to perform adequately without reading a whole book first. In Gregory Colón Semenza’s words of advice on writing, “every scholar appreciates a solid index,” since we often need only a few pieces of information from a book (98). With its solid index and clear structure, Semenza has written a searchable, immediately gratifying book to help new and seasoned graduate students through the various experiences of graduate school. His sub-sections average about three pages…

Published in: Student Voices

Learning How to Teach

February 7, 2013 | By Spencer Hawkins, Ph.D. Student, Comparative Literature

Aristotle begins his Metaphysics by stating that every human is essentially a student, in that “humans, by their nature, strive after knowledge.” I would add that we humans are also all teachers, insofar as we strive to turn others towards our values, or—in more enlightened terms—towards our insights. We do not just want to learn; we want what we learn to matter outside of our own imagination, in a “real world,” and the surest “outside” is in other people’s minds. The claustrophobia within makes everyone a teacher; by explaining what matters (to us—and hopefully to our listeners), we strive to…

Published in: Student Voices

Social Life Over the Years in Grad School

December 4, 2012 | By Spencer Hawkins, Ph.D. Student, Comparative Literature

When I started grad school, I was one of six students in 2007’s incoming cohort for the Comparative Literature Ph.D. program. The three of us under 25 made a common observation about the three over 25: they did not come out drinking with us. We thought it would take great effort on our part to remain “social” when we turned 25. Now that I am several years over 25, it does seem to take effort. Unplanned situations usually create the comfort that leads to friendship. If a neighbor had not invited me to a party where I met a poet,…

Published in: Student Voices

Professional Development in the Humanities

November 5, 2012 | By Spencer Hawkins, Ph.D. Student, Comparative Literature

The graduate coordinator for Comparative Literature at U-M warned me when I visited before enrolling that completing a Ph.D. in 5 years was unheard of; 6.5 years was normal, and some dissertations required even longer. I did not understand at the time how dissertation-writing could fill so many years. First of all, there is the memory work. Our overseers and advisors cannot just transmit all of the relevant background knowledge. There are the terms to define (intentionality), the distinctions to maintain (concept, thought, idea, notion), the histories to remember (Did Goethe prefer to show already popular plays or high-brow, obscure…

Published in: Student Voices

Making Time for Hobbies

September 25, 2012 | By Spencer Hawkins, Ph.D. Student, Comparative Literature

Both of my parents teach piano, and my mother always told me to practice music as a hobby—and no more. By the time I reached high school, I had given up piano and violin and had started playing Classical guitar, and soon moved on to my favorite songs by Sublime, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and Led Zeppelin. As an undergraduate I would invent songs and play them at open mics. Around the time I started graduate school, I began to want to jam with others. These popular teenage Scottish musicians [The Claymores] probably enjoy music and work hard in school.…

Published in: Student Voices

The Best Coffee Shops in Ann Arbor

August 23, 2012 | By Spencer Hawkins, Ph.D. Student, Comparative Literature

As an undergraduate, I made a habit of following professors out of lecture halls to try out my ideas on them. One patient pedagogue, Rhetoric Prof. Frederick Dolan used to indulge these follow-ups, and sometimes we would even stop for coffee. “Coffee is the last socially acceptable drug,” he would smile. Caffeine blocks the brain’s adenosine receptors. Living bodies are never completely exempt from the entropic laws governing inanimate matter, that aspect of you that remains indifferent to your existence. The divergence of interests between matter and vigor inspired Freud’s death drive theory. And what a fitting symbol adenosine makes…

Published in: Student Voices

Meet Our Bloggers: Spencer Hawkins

July 18, 2012 | By Spencer Hawkins, Ph.D. Student, Comparative Literature

How I Got Here I came to Michigan eager to join a community where serious thought was cherished. I have learned a lot from my students, peers, and professors, and they also give me what is essential at every stage in intellectual life: demonstrated interest in what I am thinking. As a doctoral student in comparative literature, I read old books, letters, and manuscripts to see how the passage of time alters what passes for realistic, smart, or scientific. My dissertation explores Hans Blumenberg's fascinating hypothesis that one linguistic snag resists historical change; the hypothesis states that any prolific thinker…

Published in: Student Voices

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