14 May
Says the PANK (professional aunt, no kids) to the wonderful mamas in her life. To preserve the (mostly obliterated) semblance of my image as a serious academic, I will refrain from re-posting the Mr. T “Treat yo mama right” rap. Instead, a fav old pic.
(Nephew #1, 2009)
13 May
Later on, Ashira elaborated: “We will sometimes talk about why don’t we have any white kids? We wonder what their schools are like. We see them on TV, with the soccer fields and the biology labs and all that cool stuff. Sometimes I feel I have to work harder because I don’t have all that they have. A lot of us think that way.”
12 May
Working on chapter 3 of the manuscript, a quote from an IV staffworker’s talk:
She said: “The world says there’s nothing worse than being called a racist. Every day on TV, they always reach a point where someone’s fighting and they’re like, “You are a racist.” And then it ends up crazy, “I’m not a racist! I’m not a racist!” You know what, if you are a Christian, you should be like “I’m a jacked up sinner. I’m so messed up that I’m going to frickin’ die . . . The foundation of my religion is that I can’t save myself; I’m not a good person in my heart. Am I a racist? Probably, probably more than I know.” “
(don’t you want to buy this book? it’s loads of fun, $-back totally not-guaranteed!)
11 May
9 May
Congrats are in order to…
My neighbor Jonathan, who will be starting at UMass Amherst in the fall! We’re so proud of him.
The awesome Rusty Hawkins, who will be starting a tenure-track position as Asst. Prof of History at Indiana Wesleyan. (TT positions in the humanities = holy grail) His book on White evangelicals and the Civil Rights movement is going to make some waves when it comes out.
My former colleague at Miami, Marcia Baxter Magolda, on her retirement. Marcia is a force of nature–unintentionally hilarious and incredibly generous, an amazing scholar whose work on self-authorship is second to none. She will never slow down. Good company, indeed.
My colleague Susan Komives, who is retiring after 20+ years of teaching at Maryland and 30+ years of serving the profession. We’ll celebrate her on Friday and I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do without her next year…fortunately she’ll always be an email away.
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In other news, Day 1 of using a standing desk @home. (Really my laptop propped on top of a picnic basket on top of a taller table) We’ll see how this goes.
7 May
http://hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archive/2012/04/rodney-king-redux (reposted from angryphil)
7 May
5 May
On the summer reading list: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/books/review/when-god-talks-back-by-tm-luhrmann.html?src=recg
Evangelicals believe in an intimate God who talks to them personally because their churches coach them in a new theory of mind. In these communities, religious belief is “more like learning to do something than to think something. . . . People train the mind in such a way that they experience part of their mind as the presence of God.”
“The concept of spiritual maturity allows people to reinterpret a disappointment as, in effect, a promotion,” Luhrmann explains.
[CogSciMama Ji says that this is really form of "perceptual learning," where concrete experiences help train up later perception--fascinating!]
4 May
