Muskrat01

Anyone have any experience with graduate reading groups, especially in literature? The situation is this: we have one (!) that is sort of run by students. It apparently dropped off last year (my first year). I offered to take it over next year (2010-2011), which would be fine except a) I have some conflicted feelings about there being only one graduate reading group in one specific area, and b)there seems to be some conflict over whether faculty should be involved, which, as I understand it, is one of the main selling points of these groups -- getting faculty and students together outside the classroom to have, you know, REAL conversations. I think I am asking if anyone has suggestions for how to have an effective and useful group, and then also if it would seem weird or overbearing of me as a second-year PhD candidate with no experience in reading groups to start a new group (assuming I didn't take leadership of this old one) to address a different genre or era or whatever?

They are, unfortunately, always exclusively to me, as far as I can tell from talking to my peers in the class. I'm totally cool with hanging out with faculty and being friends and such like. I have had great experiences with this in my master's program, but this is definitely a "test the waters, see how far I can get" kind of situation with this professor. I think just laying low and letting it pass may be the best plan and then hopefully we can move into the "we're friends and nothing's wrong with getting some coffee" stage.

Well, so far, he's asked me to meet him for coffee to discuss a paper I'm writing in our class, he lingers after class to talk with me and walk me out, he makes comments that could be interpreted as either totally innocent or totally flirty depending on the context and how I repeat them (which, so far, I haven't because another professor in our department was accused of harassment recently and it was a big scandal) and he's made insinuations that we should meet outside of class to just kind of hang out, although this insinuation was very vague and not at all explicit. I don't feel harassed, just sort of curious about how to proceed without endangering my credibility and his. I think he's a pretty cool guy and I like talking to him about the work and sometimes random other stuff. I don't want any trouble, nor do I want any kind of affair. I also don't want to inadvertently get into something that will jeopardize my chances at having a non-partial committee later. Any thoughts?

Anyone else ever had problems with professors flirting with them at the PhD/comps/dissertation advisor level? Any advice?