The Grim Pedagogies of “Hereditary”
(Kinda spoilery, sorry – go see it!) Believe it or not, the most memorable moment for me in horror movie of the year Hereditary is a relatively quiet one: a mom speaking to her son. Annie looks hard...
View ArticleThis Syllabus is Not a Contract
It has become quite fashionable for educators and educational institutions to describe their offerings as contracts with their students. This is completely inaccurate, and misleading. I think I know...
View Articlethe fullness of emptying out
I love summer vacation. One of the most precious parts of a life in schools is the implacability of the schedule. In September, as sure as gravity, I teach. And right now, in the middle of the summer —...
View Articlethe presence of social distancing
I am probably taking my undergrads online starting Monday, as they return from spring break. This isn’t university policy yet, but it’s not NOT policy either. Most recent guidance states that “faculty...
View Articlethe shock and the sacred and the shock
All over the country right now, teachers are being asked to work double and triple-hard. In response to widespread shuttering of schools — for weeks, maybe longer — thousands of districts are asking...
View ArticleSkating Well
The semester started three weeks ago, the calendar tells me. Like so many, I am only teaching online, for the foreseeable future. Last March, when we didn’t bring the students back from spring break,...
View Articleno better than its places
“Old Bob” was a horse that belonged to Blanford Barnard (“B.B.”) Dougherty, one of the founders of the school that became Appalachian State University, and its distinguished first president. This is...
View Articlethe good doctor
The condemnation this weekend of a vile editorial about whether Dr. Jill Biden should retain her academic title when she becomes First Lady was gratifyingly swift, and its defense has been predictably...
View ArticleDidn’t Feel The Need
Today I use my small megaphone to amplify Nikole Hannah-Jones’ decision not to join the faculty of my doctoral alma mater, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is a shameful day to be a...
View ArticleA Friendly Emptiness
Lots of people are writing good remembrances of Charlie Watts. (Here’s one I really like.) But none of them are drummers, that I have found so far, and so none of them seems to get what matters most...
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