Let me first say how thrilled I am to see everyone here today. I’m thrilled. We offered this seminar on the “Interracial Politics of Food and Television: 1996-’98” last year and only five students enrolled (and we had a lot of fun, we really — I really learned a lot). But anyway, I’m so excited that there are, as of this morning when I checked, 60 students registered online. I printed out 60 syllabi, does anyone not have one?

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A lot of hands, okay, wow. Well if you all could share that would be great, we’ll be going over that in a bit. Is everyone comfortable enough? I’m sorry so many of you have to stand. Wow guys,

I mean — thank you for coming, really. It’s really gratifying.

That being said, there of course is not going to be room for all of you, which is really unfortunate but it’s very important to me that we keep this a small seminar. I’m so sorry because I wish I could take everyone. This is so tough. For me.

So before we go over the reading list, which you may be excited to learn includes the entire Toni Morrison and Dave Eggers collections, I just want to see … how many juniors and seniors are here?

Oh alright, um, one, two, three, four … 42. Forty-three? Sorry didn’t see you in the corner there.

Well sorry, freshmen and sophomores it’s not looking good for your chances. You’re welcome to stay certainly but I understand if you want to step out now in order to shop other classes. I know a lot of you may be trying to also get into “Constitutional Art History and Sex,” so I’ll pause for a moment if people need to make their way out.

Thank you for coming!

Alright so still a fair amount of you left. How many of you, can I ask, are American Studies, PoliSci, or WGSS majors?

All of you?

Is anyone all three? Two of them? No, huh. Because I was going to say then you could definitely …

Shit.

I didn’t bring any note cards for you to write on and I’m not completely sure how else to gauge your eligibility for the course …

Let’s see.

Is anyone here not a dog person?

Yeah seriously. Who here does not like dogs?

You four? All right, you can go. Yes, I mean it. Don’t look at me like that, you’re the dog hater. What kind of person is that?

Blue eyes can stay. Brown maybe. Green eyes are very unlikely.

If you’ve watched all of “The Wire” you can stay, otherwise you need to leave now, unless you think you can name three movies in which Steve Buscemi has played a supporting role.

You can? All right, speak to me after class.

Looks like we still have about 25.

If you’re a chick you should probably go.

Does anyone here think we should have some sort of preregistration process for these seminars?

You can go.

What else …

Nose goes.

Were you the last one, in the corner? To put your finger on your nose? See you next time.

Oh, I know! Anyone who has already read “Beloved” should not stay. Goodbye, goodbye, thanks again for coming, I’m glad you made it this far.

So that just leaves you? And what’s your name? Tom. Well, I think it’s going to be a great semester.