I map the world with words.I am a true devotee of the liberal arts. I believe that the proper aim of higher education is to ensure that students who will go on to serve as parents, community leaders, professionals, citizens, and lifelong learners are equipped with historical, ethical, and social understanding that can inform their decisions and empower them to build communities enriched with learning and culture. The reading, rhetoric, and research practices I teach my students are all directed to these ends. Citing sources without plagiarism is an exercise in ethical reasoning; so is classroom courtesy. Training students as discriminating readers helps them resist the blandishments of mere consumer culture, including its repackaging of “high culture” as a commodity for consumption. From the smallest question of paragraph structure to the profoundest meditation on “this quintessence of dust” who dwells “on this isthmus of a middle state,” I teach English in order to guide, guard, and goad my willing students into habits that make for virtue.Specialties: Religion and Literature Studies, 19th C British Poetry, Romanticism, Rhetoric and Composition instruction, sonnets, hermeneutics.-- et cognoscetis veritatem, et veritas liberabit vos --