A doctoral student from Spain will come work with me for a few months next year. This is the second time this has happened. The first student was very good and is making a career for herself in Spain; we are still in touch.
It made me realize, though, that I don't have students come to work with me for a PhD. Aside from a particular coterie of people in Spain, and the world of Lorca studies, my criticism is not really read. My field, the study of twentieth century Spanish poetry, is nearly dead in this country. Most people now work in Cultural Studies, in which poetry hardly exists as such. It will be hard to have new Lorquistas, since nobody wants to work on single authors anymore for their dissertations.
I don't mean to sound negative. I will take what I can get, and I tell myself I never wanted to be chef d'école. Is that the phrase? I'm a good third or fourth reader on dissertations outside my field, but it would be very difficult to direct a student in my own field that I didn't feel was my equal.
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