I am on the precipice of my first full and proper new teaching year since joining Birkbeck College in January 2010, and I must say, I can feel the heat. But I have good reason for my senses to be a little on the edge – I am starting two (more or less) completely new modules this term, both of which I’ve been designing over the year. I am excited about teaching both – titled respectively Media, Technology and Everyday Life and Media and Society – not simply because they are in areas in which I already have intellectual interests, but because they are in areas I seek to further develop those interests. Over the summer, it sunk in that these courses will really amount to a rare opportunity: to travel through a series of ideas and literature I might not have otherwise considered at the same pace (if at all); and to do so with the mature and often healthily sceptical students I’m lucky to have at Birkbeck. Part of me hopes things go really well; and part of me (honestly) hopes I get caught out by my students, from time to time, on some shaky assumptions.

To mark the occasion I’ve added a new section on teaching, which includes details and syllabi for the new modules mentioned above.