the trouble with happiness
For a few years now, I’ve been thinking about (and writing and teaching about) happiness and it’s limits…as a concept, goal and demand placed on most of us to smile (or die). Much of this work is...
View Articleno snobs allowed
[sung to the tune of "No Dogs Allowed"] Frequently, I send myself links to articles that I’d like to read more closely. I have the best intentions of reading them. But, oftentimes, they languish in my...
View ArticleMental Health and the Academy
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the psychic/emotional/spiritual effects and affects of working in the academy. I’m hoping to write more about my experiences soon. I might even turn it into a...
View ArticleDouble Vision
I’m still experimenting with creating stories about my family trip to Utah this spring. In Double Vision, I’ve stitched together footage from our May 2001 trip (shot with a Sony Digital Handycam) and...
View ArticleStoryteller?!
Note: This entry is an excerpt from my recent book, Unofficial Student Transcripts. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how my passion has shifted from (academic/intellectual) troublemaking to...
View ArticleThe Mirror Stage?
[Fletcher, age 6 months, looking in the mirror, 2003] The mirror stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation – and which manufactures for the subject,...
View ArticleBeside/s: Why do we tell stories?
As I continue to work on my own storytelling (and possibly a new site…), I want to put these ideas about why to tell stories beside each other: To Provide a Mirror Junot Diaz. You guys know about...
View ArticleGrief Revisited
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not writing in this blog that much this summer. It’s mostly because I’m working on another blog project that is consuming most of my time (The Farm). But it’s also...
View ArticleA Great Hashtag
While I don’t have time to write about it right now, I thought I’d quickly archive a great hashtag that’s been making the rounds on my twitter feed over the past couple of days:...
View ArticleBesides: The Ethics of Taking a Walk and Paying Attention
Read these sources beside each other: Linda Besner’s How to Look at Poor People Maria Popova’s The Art of Looking There must be a way to train the eye to look at socio-economic difference in an ethical...
View ArticleTrouble Coffee and Coconut Club
This story on This American Life inspired me to “fire up” this blog again. Maybe I’ll start writing here again? Bonus: Original Story How Did Toast Become the Latest Artisanal Food Craze?
View ArticleOn Being Capacious
Last year, J Butler spoke about the continued need for the humanities. I was particularly drawn to her use of “capacious.” Ideally, we lose ourselves in what we read, only to return to ourselves,...
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On Pranksters
Here’s a book that I’m interested in checking out: Pranksters: Making Mischief in the Modern World. It was published on April 1, 2014, of course. Invoking such historical and contemporary figures as...
View Articletrouble needs a home
I heard this trouble song on The Current a few days ago: Trouble needs a home girls, a covert abode from Tucson to Ohio back through Tobacco road. And she is armed and will fight for the souls of girls...
View ArticleA Troublemaking Anthem
Troublemakers spend a lot of time confronting (encountering and challenging) bullshit. This is exhausting. And it can make you really, really angry. What can you do with that rage so it doesn’t consume...
View ArticleAnxiety, Curiosity and David Sedaris
Yesterday morning, I was listening to an old This American Life, Americans in Paris. In the first act, Ira Glass follows David Sedaris around Paris. While talking to Glass about the anxiety that he...
View ArticleOn Bad Babies, Moral Education and Care-as-Generosity
Note: I originally started this blog post in mid April. I decided to finish it up today. Originally, this post was intended to be far more ambitious…maybe that’s why I never finished it. In completing...
View ArticleFor Further Reflection
Here are a few passages that I’d like to return to or just remember: From The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison. Empathy is always perched precariously between gift and invasion (5). Empathy is a kind of...
View ArticleOh Bother! adjunct as expert
I just found this book trailer via Facebook and this article. Adjunct = Prestigious Expert? Ha!
View ArticleBeside/s: Remembering and Forgetting
Last week I, along with my husband and two kids, took a road trip to Utah. Starting in Minnesota, we drove through Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado to get there. It was a lot of driving. To endure it,...
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