Craig Professor of English Sarah Gates

How long have you worked at St. Lawrence? What is your role?

“Well, I’ve been here 20 years or so. I came in 2002. That’s when I started teaching here. So not quite 20. I am a professor of English in the English department, and I also teach in the First Year Program. Right now I’m the chair of the Tenure and Promotions Committee for faculty, and next year I’ll be taking over as chair of the English department.” 

Where did you go to college and why did the education field attract you?

“I went to Boston University for my undergrad. Actually I stayed there for my graduate degrees as well. I guess I don’t think of it as the field of education. I think of it as the field of literature and literary study, but what I love is turning students on to these great works of literature. That’s what I always wanted to do. That’s what I love to do because I love them all so much myself.”

What is your favorite part about working with students?

“Watching them create wonderful new ideas, develop them into some fascinating new angle on something that I’d never thought of myself. And then just having classes, just seeing how discussions will grow and where they go.”

What is your favorite thing about St. Lawrence?

“I love that it’s small enough to be flexible so that students can pursue a lot of different interests and faculty can too. So I don’t have to just teach Victorian novelists, which is what my field is, but I can teach Tolkien and whatever else strikes my fancy.”

How do you think you’ve grown since you started at SLU?

“Wow, I don’t know how to disentangle that from having grown from raising children. I guess I’ve become much more patient as an instructor. I’m much more willing than I used to be when I was younger to let a discussion unfold however it’s going to go instead of putting boundaries on it and trying to force it to go in the way I want it to go.”

What are your hobbies/interests?

“Well I’m a musician as well as a lit person. I play guitar. I’m in a band called Bee Children. We’ve got two albums out. We gave a great concert back in the ancient days before COVID in the library, back when people could mingle together. I love watching movies. I love cats.”

What is your favorite candy?

“Chocolate in any way shape or form. That’s my Silmaril.”

Do you have any major upcoming projects?

“Well, yes! I have this long-standing project that’s about the only one left. I just completed two big ones over the summer, but the next thing now waiting for my attention is I want to do something with Tolkien. The idea I have is to look at high fantasy, literary fantasy, and high realism as it was written in the Victorian Era, Tolkien’s immediate predecessors in writing novels, and to show that the two ways of writing have a lot more in common than people think they do. I think there’s a great deal of fantasy involved in creating a secondary world even if that secondary world is our world. It’s not really our world. It’s a society that the author has invented. There’s that side. On the other side, there’s a great deal of use in creation of fantasy worlds that takes techniques from realism in order to paint those worlds in a plausible, realistic way. I want to lay that out. I’m calling it ‘Middlemarch and Middle-earth.’”

How have you been handling life in an election year with a global pandemic?

“I find it so unbearable. I mean, I have been donating money. Thank God we’re all quarantined and isolated and can’t eat dinner out because all the money that I have saved from not travelling and not going anywhere I’m sending to candidates of my choice and causes of my choice. I find watching the news unbearable and painful. So that part is really hard. I’m very grateful that I’m in Middle-earth for much of this time as painful as things are there.”

What is one piece of advice that you would give to yourself as an undergraduate?

“Speak up in class more. I was one who always sat on the far edge right by the door and watched classes happen.”

Do you have any advice that you would offer to your colleagues at this time?

“Be patient with your classes.”

Is there anything you would like to add?

“I feel like I have a blessed life, and I’m so grateful to be here. I love every single thing about it.”