Of course, representations always matter. Both choices and implications. Disregarding the author and his/her/their background and intent (see, for example, “The Death of the Author”) is typically important when analyzing culture. Humans are generally blind to their own circumstances and… Read More ›
As I have written numerous times, and as my students can attest, I am a proponent of seeing everything as a social construction. Such a position is easily misunderstood. I often hear: what do you mean that so-and-so is a social construction. There… Read More ›
Terra Naomi’s “Say It’s Possible,” a powerful song inspired by Vice President Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, has captured my fascination since first hearing it in 2007. You can watch it here. Lyrics are here. Of all the lyrics I find… Read More ›
A powerful lesson happens when we have understandings of the past informed by evidence: the realization that most things considered “traditional” or as having lasted forever are actually new developments–often in the past century, sometimes in the past decade or… Read More ›
The trajectory of history in the United States continues. In the face of violence, death, and suffering, conservatives opt to do nothing. Opting to do nothing when solutions are readily available amounts to moral failure. Even scant acknowledgments of the… Read More ›
While eating my supper of crackers, deli turkey, and strawberries, I had a question: What is the relationship between Disney’s children’s movies (and alphabetic fairy tales) and the current–baffling–acceptance of authoritarianism in the United States? Why are people–who proclaim to… Read More ›
Why do we separate some 7 billion (that’s 7,000,000,000) humans currently living into two categories: “he” or “she”? Likewise, why do we also separate trillions (quadrillions?) of non-human forms of life into “he” or “she”? Such structuralist thinking is completely… Read More ›
