ABSTRACT
Epiphany begins in darkness and is near the beginning of the church year, preceded by Advent and Christmas: It is the festival that celebrates the arrival of the three Magi at Bethlehem in the middle of the night, and the texts from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures read in churches during that season are full of hope and light in the face of impossible odds. It was in that spirit that the author returned to college for his undergraduate degree—in music, although he soon switched to English—following his diagnosis with HIV in the late 1980s. The author feels proud of the graduate students who have presented papers they’ve written in his seminars at various national conferences, of the articles they’ve published, and of the graduate students he has taught who have finished their PhDs, all of whom are now in tenure-track positions.
