I’m a native central Pennsylvanian, and in this paragraph I used to talk about my favorite leisure activities—hiking the Appalachian Trail, playing electric blues guitar, getting an education in contemporary pop culture from my delightful daughters, and enjoying tea with my best conversation partner, but now I’m the English department chair and I almost forget how to spell the word “leisure.”  Well, consider the bright side: department chairing has nipped my blogging career in the bud—we’ve all been spared!

Every now and then I visit my second home, Scotland, where I hike the mountains of Glencoe, admire the stonecarvings of Gardner Molloy, and occasionally hobnob with Glaswegian pedestrians who write entertaining fictions and paint fascinating murals inside churches converted to pubs. 

I'm currently working on reading of James Joyce's "The Dead" as an exemplary ethical narrative.  I'm particularly interested in how to read Gabriel Conroy's "epiphany," to identify the nature of the choice Joyce gives his readers to respond to Gabriel in the closing moment of the story.