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:At Computers and Writing #cwcon for the weekend.Am I wise now? At an event for encouragi…AcademiaRandom sibling selfie.PersonalSymbiosis (TNG Rewatch, Season 1 Episode 22)Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…CultureIf I don’t hang my own artwork on the walls of my #steampunk fantasy ship-of-the-line, who…AestheticsThe lighting doesn't really convey that this is supposed to be a…
Similar:Enjoying a visit to the Carnegie Science Center with my son. Mars exhibit is immersive an…PersonalSimulated iceberg, preserved artifacts and re-creations at the Titanic installation. …CultureProper commenting is an important part of coding any project, especially in an educational…Proper commenting is an important part o…PersonalWhat's wrong with the way I talk?Wife & daughter competing…
Similar:Another lovely variation of a #steampunk control panel. #blender3dart #neovictorian #desig…AestheticsAbout to launch. PersonalThe Forsaken (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 17) Lwaxana Troi and the station c…Rewatching ST:DS9 Bashir is hosting t…CultureOpens Wednesday.PersonalMoonBot is back. This time he fights a new adversary. #Blender3D physics practice.I submitted midterm grades at about 11 l…AestheticsIn between 3 walks…
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:Dear organization from my past that just sent me a scolding email…Dear organization from my past that just…CultureRenata, Carolyn and Alex in a scene from this weekend's Pippin.CultureBehind the bar in the officers' pub, from the #steampunk bedtime stories I used to tell my…AestheticsThe storage shelves of my fantasy steampunk CGI starship will need…
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:No space for over-30s as relaunched MySpace erases its pastKeep a local backup of anything importan…BusinessThe "Monsters, Inc" company play helped me teach ShakespeareToday the awkward but delightful “Monste…AcademiaJesus Christ SuperstarI have a daughter who does things. Her n…CultureAs Mount St. Mary’s Offers to Reinstate 2 Professors, Faculty Demands President QuitThe president of Mount St.…
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:Waiting for the house to open. @prime_stagePersonalI am a dog and I am a good boy and I am prepping my Spring courses.AcademiaSignage failure at Seton Hill, c. 2008.PersonalPompeii artifacts at the Carnegie Science Center The lighting was very low, so the phot…AestheticsDuring World War II, Literature Reigned SupremeBooks symbolized freedom.…
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,…