Andrea Sunun was selected Professor of the Week based on votes from an oline poll at thedepauw.com. TheDePauw Features sat down with her Monday evening to bring you her story. Here's what she had to say:
TDP Features: Where are you from, originally?
Professor Andrea Sununu (Sununu): Well, I was born in New York City, but when I was two, my father's job took him to Beirut, Lebanon. So, I was there from age two until age 17. I went to a French school, which is why I have this accent. I studied French and Arabic and British English and emerged with this hodgepodge of an accent that nobody can ever place.
TDP Features: How many languages do you speak?
Sununu: Well, I mean I formally studied Arabic, English and French. My Arabic has gotten very rusty. My sisters went to a German school, so I used to help them a bit with their homework. But I never really learned German. I audited it in college and that was it. I taught myself to read Italian, but I don't count it. I can't speak a word. With French, it's easy, so I used to be able to get the gist of Italian. Really, it's just French, Arabic and English that were my languages.
TDP Features: Why do you like literature?
Sununu: Because it's always new, even when one reads old texts. The old texts can speak to us now, and the language is so marvelous to see it developing over different centuries. There's always something new to discover in it. It's also a comprehensive kind of discipline because through literature, one learns about all sorts of other disciplines and one puts things together in interesting ways. And there's the aesthetic pleasure of reading literature and analyzing it and then putting it back together again that's very satisfying.
TDP Features: You're known for meeting with students late at night. Can you talk a little bit about why you do that?
Sununu: Well, it's just that I meet with every student over every paper, and I have every student rewrite every paper except for the final paper in some classes. For example in English 120, I assign seven papers and seven rewrites, but in other courses, I have one fewer rewrites than I have actual papers. But that means I'm constantly reading papers and so, in order to have enough time to meet with everybody, I just have to extend my hours of meeting with them into the night because there are just so many hours.
TDP Features: What approach do you take when teaching?
Sununu: I just like to get students interested in the joys of reading literature, especially poetry, because I think usually poetry is not taught much in high school or if it is taught it's just not taught very well. So students come to literature, poetry especially, being scared of it, and I like to be able to show them that it's not scary at all. It has many rewards if you just work at it a bit and figure out how to enjoy reading poetry for the sound of it and for the artfulness with which poets work with forms and create something that has stood the test of time.