To us today, the word “black” carries with it a specific cluster of associations informed by history, culture, stereotypes, and literature. Othello may have started in conversation with Shakespeare’s definition of blackness, but today, he speaks with ours. A much more interesting question, really, is: Why is Othello black? Why did Shakespeare write a domestic…
Similar:“Waiting for Life” (Once on This Island)https://youtu.be/NeoVD3prQWYPersonalMy 13yo homeschooler had no idea how to open a little milk carton. I had to show her.CultureMy daughter was five or six when she created the character “Moonbot” for the #steampunk be…https://youtu.be/GoWiNB_tlJ8 AestheticsThe Daughter's 21st Birthday Current_EventsCarolyn and Nick in Beauty and the BeastAesthetics13: The Musical Promohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40MbeApiX…Culture
Similar:The Physics Behind Traffic JamsIn between today’s various events, I das…CultureBag a Bot DayAt midnight tonight, participants in the…Current_EventsPict Classic Theatre Romeo and Juliet. PersonalSunny but cool. Great day for a long walk with my son.Personal“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Very glad I got my son interested in 2001: …PersonalThe Problems…
Similar:I think I smelled a hint of my mint toothpaste just now. Wishful thinking, or another sign…For the past 2 weeks I have slept a lot,…AcademiaSon took out trash w/o being asked; daughter wore papercraft tophat to grocery store. Life…I took my daughter to an Alice-in-Wonder…ArtOwner of former Latrobe Athletic Club continues pursuit to transform…
As new age synthesizer music, a rich baritone narrates: “Audisee presents: The War of the Worlds. The year is 2015 A.D. From the first launching into space, in 1961, to the establishment of a base on Jupiter this year, man has not encountered extraterrestrial life forms.” When I was about 10 or 11, I loved…
Similar:More #Blender3D practice. Additional details for a steampunk control panel. Just because.AestheticsIf not enough people are stopping by your table to hear your presentation, you take your p…AcademiaReception after faculty workshop. #partylikeaprofessorPersonalMany of these individual steampunk control panel elements are repeated, but I've arranged …Aesthetics"I don't view Shakespeare's work as intimidating anymore." — midterm…
Canon Australia wants to sell cameras. This soft-sell video flatters the creative ambitions of customers in order to make them want to invest money in a fancy camera. We should be critical of the premise, because the video is not an art project or a psychological study. Still, this is good storytelling, and helps make a…
What if universities stopped buying academic journals, and put the money towards hiring editors who helped their faculty publish their scholarship in their own free, open-source journals? I don’t know how much labour goes into running a prestigious journal, but let’s say all the universities that really need those specialised mathematics journals sat down and…
No Christians in my social media feed care about the design of that cup. Lots of people in my social media feed have reposted stories critical of the silly Christians who get all worked up about the design of the cup. Full disclosure: I don’t drink coffee. [C]ontrary to a few breathless media reports, most Christians…
Similar:Why Grown-Ups Keep Talking Like Little KidsFelt writey. Because reasons. The other…CultureThe Outcast (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 17) Genderless civilization oppress…Rewatching ST:TNG Members of a ge…CultureReport: Many U.S. Schools Can’t Afford Mannequins, Human Urine For Art Classes“It’s sad, but my students don’t even ha…AestheticsA trend story about millennials, by The New York Times“When…
This is probably the first time in history that young readers themselves are demanding protection from the disturbing content of their course texts, yet reading has been seen as a threat to mental health for thousands of years. In accordance with the paternalistic ethos of ancient Greece, Socrates said that most people couldn’t handle written…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Similar:Commentary: What My Struggling Students Wanted Me to UnderstandI haven’t taught a developmental course …AcademiaThe cultural implications of the myth that English majors end up working permanently at St…Would you like facts with that? English …AcademiaThe Impact of Google on Our MemorySo what is it that makes us memorize les…CultureThe last…
The story of Play-Doh began when Kutol, a Cincinnati based soap company, was about to go under in the late 1920s. Cleo McVicker, just 21 years old, was tasked with selling off the company’s remaining assets, which at the time comprised mainly of powdered hand soap. Once that was done, the company would be too. …
Carolyn started rehearsals for PICT Classic Theatre’s Oliver Twist this week. She’s playing a member of Fagin’s gang. Last year in Great Expectations, she split a role; this year there is no double-casting, so she’s in every performance. I’ll be doing a lot of driving. This is not the musical Oliver; it’s the director’s original…
The conventional wisdom is that humanities majors are wasting all that tuition money and dooming themselves to lives of underemployment. The conventional wisdom is wrong. Humanities degrees are actually worth well more than the cost of college. […] The present value of the extra earnings that graduates in humanities majors can expect over their lifetime…
“We at The Recorder strive to ensure that every piece of writing we publish contains timely and thoroughly reported information, and because each sentence of this article contains at least one factual error, we made the call to kill it,” said editor-in-chief Hannah Lowry, noting numerous “red flags” in the article that included an incorrect…
Tonight, when I got home after all the evening’s ballet and piano lessons were over, I was plugging in my laptop at my desk and knocked down a little framed picture — it’s a photo my wife took of me on our first date. (On that same occasion, I also took a picture of her,…
Students in my Shakespeare class will be attending this play. Student actors at Seton Hill University are off on a journey through one of William Shakespeare’s most popular romantic comedies, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Not even the writing style of the Bard — sometimes difficult to master for those new to the playwright’s poetic verse…
When I publish as a scholar, my goal is not to make money, but to share my intellectual creation. That’s part of my job description, so my university writes my paycheck with the expectation that I will publish. My publications will have more impact if more people read them. Hiding them behind subscription paywalls will…
As my freshman writing students assemble sources for their term research paper, I will point them towards this article, which raises ethical concerns about using fear as a persuasive tool. (Aristotle said that the appeal to fear, like that of lust, reaches our baser emotions; appeals to love, justice, patriotism, etc. are harder to create,…