Dear English Department Alumni,

Warmest greetings from Beijing.  It is very interesting how I ended up on this side of the straits.  A couple of years ago our Fu Jen College of Foreign Languages decided that it was time for me to retire from full-time teaching.  After considering various options, I decided to retire to our little Priory near to Fu Jen University and spend my time working on many writing projects that I have yet to complete, including a couple of books.  Then, much to my surprise, I was asked by the Institute of Comparative Literature and Culture at Peking University if I would like to teach there full-time.  They had heard that I was about to retire and had nothing to do.  It was an offer that I could not pass up.

I began teaching here in the spring of this year and taught a graduate course on the history of comparative literature in the United States.  Now I'm at the start of the fall semester and am teaching a graduate course on writing techniques in traditional Chinese and Western fiction and an undergraduate course on American Fiction 1900-1930.

The Institute of Comparative Literature and Culture is in the Chinese Department, so I'm a member of the Chinese Department which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.  The University, Department and Institute have been very kind to me, helping me to adjust to my life.  In many ways I'm in the midst of a second spring.  Since 1966 I have been involved with Fu Jen and now, for the first time, I find myself working elsewhere.  Nonetheless, I do continue to teach at Fu Jen, often by means of Skype.

If you by any chance come to Beijing, please let me know and I'll invite you to have some zajiang mian.  My e-mail addresses remains the same:  001193@mail.fju.edu.tw and nicholaskoss@hotmail.com.

Yours,
Bro. Koss