You can take the course by following the syllabus. Would love to hear what happens if you do.

And thank you for bringing up the memory of the course like this I almost taught at Goshen years ago. I think the fact that I was too depressed to teach in that six-week period has shaped much of my own life. I may, in fact, be drawn to this subject and this blog because of that loss in the past. Let's keep reading and writing together. Eventually, we will get course credit.

Melanie sounds like an equally thoughtful prof, and I would have loved to have been in this class. You mentioned in your intro that a syllabus can be a work of art. As I read it I got a picture of Melanie because even in a syllabus, a document which many assume to be a cold list of facts, she gives many clues to her own values and life–part of what makes it art. I picture her in a somewhat messy office, clearing away papers to uncover the laptop which she sighs as she opens because she has to take care of some business in the “virtual world.” She’d much rather be writing in her latest moleskin notebook or listening to a student’s story about his grandmother who has a stash of 976 rolls of toilet paper in the attic.