Something in the mail today from the Alma Mater . . .

Such a blessing

My alma mater, A.B '55, M.A. '60, scores again in the department of all that is inscrutable in our time of enlightenment. New man -- my first guess but not so sure: Got her undergraduate degree at Smith, a woman's college -- in the English department, where she will supply a new thrust in direction of the completely correct. Not, however, in its pronoun usage, for starters. Which is where the old English teacher has to barge in. The text below has this about her (? see how she (they?) put it:

Dr. Aqdas Aftab started teaching at Loyola in 2021 after getting their PhD from University of Maryland. Since then, they have brought a new literary perspective focused on anti-racism, decolonization, and queer and transgender theory to our evolving English Department.

See? Such a display would have been so obviously out of sync with all that was de rigueur in the '50's as to be laughable. St. Ignatius High and Loyola Academy freshmen and sophomores would never have tried it. Would not have occurred to them.

So that's my point for the day. Loyola, I hardly knew you. Not for some time, of course. Yet and still (a black-ism of the '60s as I encountered), it's something in some circles to take note of. And I hereby do.

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English Papers: Monthly updates from the English Department, Loyola Chicago (April 2023)

Dr. Aqdas Aftab

There's more:

In the classroom, Dr. Aftab works collaboratively with their students to create a small decolonial world in which they can all learn and share their perspectives about dismantling oppressive systems.

“I tell my students that they co-create the classroom with me, so they [ok]  need to bring in their [ditto] authenticity, their ideas, their excitement, and their individuality,” they say. “I really want to hear their unique voices in terms of the content that I teach.”