Chris (aka Christine, Crissy, Dr. Chris) is still teaching at Stanford. This year, she received a formal Lectureship through the Program and Writing and Rhetoric, so she's been teaching freshman composition to incoming freshman -- her life as a Victorianist has been put on hold for the time being. She's also hard at work co-authoring a book with her friend and colleague, Dr. Alyssa O'Brien. The book's title is Envision: A Student's Guide to Visual Rhetoric. In case you were wondering, studying "visual rhetoric" involves considering the way that images (in and of themselves, as well as in conjunction with print) serve a rhetorical function -- that is make arguments. Think: ads, webpages, posters, political cartoons, etc. The book is under contract with Addison Wesley Longman and should be completely drafted by fall 2003. All this work means less time at home, unfortunately, but she still manages to drive Miranda to gymnastics and bake cookies for Max's class. Sleep? Well, that's another matter entirely.

During the Stanford holiday break, she's hard at work planning her classes for the winter, commenting on fall student papers, writing the second chapter for Envision, putting together this website, spending time with the kids, organizing and painting the rooms in the new house, and pulling off Christmas. Oh, right -- and relaxing too. She's started reading Alison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It (considered to be Bridget Jones for the working mother) which she considers alternately horrifying, fascinating, and improbably realistic.

You can visit her website (soon to be updated) or e-mail her.