Hi there! I’ve decided to start a blog.
It will be a personal blog, so I should begin by introducing myself. My name is Samuel Durham Cooper. I have a PhD, so people sometimes call me Dr. Samuel or Dr. Cooper. Or Dr. Scooper. Or just Samuel, or Sam. My job title is Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo.
I’m just starting this job at AUC, and it will be another two weeks before I fly to Cairo. Currently I’m in Alabama, reconnecting with the place I grew up, and recovering from the brutal end to my (mostly beautiful) seven-year live-in relationship with New York City, before moving to a very different place on a different continent. During a pandemic.
The drama of this experience has motivated me to do something I’ve always wanted to do but never actually done: namely, to blog. I’ll write about the books I’m reading, about learning Arabic, about my research and teaching, about my life and travels, and about “being ecological”, as the title of one of Timothy Morton’s many books puts it.
Here is a photo of me being ecological a couple weeks ago:
Cairo Cooper: Dr. Sam's Blog 