“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Wednesday, March 21, 2012

I'm Moving to Rice

I've accepted an endowed chair at Rice University. I'll be building a theory and philosophy school with Cary Wolfe--someone whom I hugely admire for several different reasons. It's exciting to think I'll be working alongside him.

Also, without doubt, we are going to create the mother of all eco graduate programs! So you should think of joining us if you are considering graduate school.

I'll also be building the Romanticism and nineteenth century studies program with my friends Helena Michie and Alexander Regier, and a host of incredible scholars who work in that field at Rice.

There is a very happening religion department in which I've been invited to teach, in particular with Anne Klein (Buddhism) and Jeffrey Kripal, who runs an institute called GEM (Gnosticism, Esotericism, Mysticism). He just published an excellent book on comics and the paranormal. They have a Contemplative Studies program, like Brown, which is right up my alley.

The Dean of Humanities at Rice is an amazingly creative and intelligent person and we're already getting on like a house on fire.

Rice in general has an optimal vibe: it's very well endowed and also very fresh and innovative.

I'm going there next week to buy a house. Houston is the fourth largest city in the USA and I'm hoping I can live a few blocks away from the Rothko Chapel and the Menil Collection. It's been a while since I was in a city--last time was when I was visiting assistant prof at NYU.

14 comments:

DublinSoil said...

Congrats Tim! Exciting move.

DublinSoil said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Congrats Tim! Sounds like a smashing turn of events...

cgerrish said...

Congratulations! I hope you've got podcasting rights in your contract. Any thoughts on what the future might hold for that aspect of your work?

Bill Benzon said...

Congratulations, Tim!

bl said...

Can't tell you how happy I am. Congrats! (And I am mostly congratulating myself on my dream come true--being able to work with both Tim Morton and Cary Wolfe as I do my PhD at Rice!)

Michael said...

That's great news. Congratulations.

the Internationale said...

Congrats Tim. Obviously this is the year of cool jobs.

Henry Warwick said...

AWESOME. Many congratulations!!!

cgporter said...

Congratulations Professor Morton! I am really happy for you. Rice University is really lucky to getting you.

cgporter said...

Congratulations Professor Morton! I am very happy for you. Rice University is very lucky to have you among their faculty.

hewhocutsdown said...

Good luck to you with this

Z said...

Why does it seem that all the good professors leave the UC for private schools?

Z said...

Why does it seem that all the good professors leave the UC for private schools?