On the porch of Marist Annex, home of the Catholic U English department, with an anonymous trumpet sounding off and a bothersome bumblebee, I sat masked and six feet apart with Dr. Gregory Baker, Inventio's newest faculty editor.

Dr. Baker was hired as an English professor at the Catholic University of America in the fall of 2013 having just finished his Ph.D. at Brown University in May of that same year, fulfilling the need for a professor with a focus in 20th century Irish literature. And though Baker had long had an academic tilt to his life’s aspirations, his exact path to the Celts was not always clear-cut.

“Growing up I didn’t feel that my high school fed me the things I ultimately wanted educationally,” Baker said. He then chastised himself—“I sound like an ingrate”— but continued on to clarify that he wanted, early on, to read intensely certain writers and in certain languages that were not offered at his high school.

This desire drove Baker to the University of Chicago where he studied classical languages and literature. He explained that somewhere along the way—maybe from some “half-read ignorance” of Joyce or T.S. Eliot or Ezra Pound, maybe also even from his brother—he had gotten into his head the ‘old’ notion that to be educated meant knowing Greek and Latin.

“So I went and spent four years reading a lot of Latin and Greek and curiously, I came out feeling not particularly 'well-educated,' at least not in the sense that I thought I might have been after having read a great deal and learned so much. But maybe that was so much the beauty of Chicago. My experience there broke down whatever clichés I had been infected with—about the notion of being educated or well-read, at least in the way it’s sometimes thrown around. It left me pursuing new questions about literature.”

Baker ultimately took two years off after undergraduate to figure out how he wanted to move forward with his education. He passed his time as “lead book stacks assistant” at the University of Chicago Library as a way to maintain his connection to the university, and more importantly keep access to a wealth of books and reading material.

When asked why he ended up getting his Ph.D., Baker responded, “Goodness… delusion. No, possibly delusion.”

Once Baker moved past his initial penchant for a sarcastic remark—which is a hallmark of why he is such a favored professor among students—he disclosed that he did always intend to go to graduate school. The real question was the focus of his studies. Though Baker gave an eloquent description of how he wanted to “explore the field of study which emphasizes or examines how classical civilizations, classical languages have impacted or influenced later generations of writers and critics and civilization and politics,” his academic fervor boiled down to one place: Ireland.

“Some of it was a long-abiding interest in people like Joyce and Yeats and Seamus Heaney,” Baker explained. “Some of it was also like, I was then about to marry into an Irish family and so it was something to talk about, something my father-in-law was like, 'yes!'”

When asked if Joyce was his favorite author, he clarified: “I would never call Joyce my favorite writer. I’m devoted to teaching his work and there’s a lot in there for me… I certainly start with Joyce as the writer that I find the greatest amount of richness in that I constantly come back to.” When asked to name his favorite book, he quipped, “Job.”

So now, in 2021, he is teaching the Senior Seminar on James Joyce and W.B. Yeats and is the Director for the Irish Studies Certificate at Catholic U.

“Getting the job here was wonderful. Being able to teach a Senior Seminar, devoting a year entirely to Yeats and Joyce… it’s one of the reasons I went into graduate school in the first place,” Baker said. “It’s the class that I by far enjoy the most.” (I also enjoy this class greatly.)

“What is enjoyable about reading Joyce and Ulysses in particular is that it’s difficult for everyone. And anyone who says it’s not difficult for them is selling something,” he joked.

But Baker’s role on campus is expanding on the campus: he is joining the board of Inventio faculty editors. He recalled his first encounter with the journal as a presentation he gave to the Student Editorial Board about the stages of turning a piece of academic work into an article, but his primary memory of the journal was admiration.

“I think it’s great for undergraduates to have the opportunity to have their work published and be put on show for the wider university. And not only that,” Baker continued, “it mirrors the process of what happens in academic publishing.”

Baker also spoke to why research is important for undergraduates. “Why else are you here?”

Speaking more seriously and as a professor of literature, he explained that literature and literary form have deep and significant backgrounds, including history, politics, religion, and philosophy, “that undergird the emergence of certain literary works,” and this understanding is only fully available through research.

“Getting students motivated to move into those worlds is really important to me,” he said.

Touching more broadly about research as a whole, Baker explained that, “to become knowledgeable in something demands more than just being able to read a Wikipedia page,” though he did acknowledge himself as a self-proclaimed Wikipedia junkie.

He ultimately described his new involvement with the journal as an act of “serendipity.” Baker had always been intrigued by the journal and discussed it often with fellow faculty editor and English professor, Dr. Okuma. A new faculty editor position opened and the rest followed.

“I’m eager, at this stage, to find new avenues of being involved with undergraduate education and Inventio is one of the pinnacles on the research level of what undergraduates are doing.”

All of the members of the Student Editorial Board are so excited to welcome Dr. Baker into our publication and look forward to many more sarcastic dad jokes balanced by a true devotion to academic research.