Late in Joel Lane’s 2003 novel The Blue Mask, a character discusses his favorite books by Jean Genet: “I often think his scenarios are built up, not just from solitary fantasies, but from real sex. The books are a fundamental part of his love life. What he does on the […]
On Facebook, the wonderful writer Marlon James made a quick post about the difference between American and British book covers, noting, “As my British publisher once said ‘over here darling we try to sell books.’” The best example was this: Let’s just say that even though I have no interest in […]
Ends and beginnings. I have no sense of 2023 as a particular thing, and I expect in the future that I will think back to various events and items of the year and not remember that 2023 was their year. Perhaps this is a post-2020 effect. The years feel indistinguishable. […]
I’m going to write a bit here first about a book you are unlikely to read. This of course poses a problem for you as a reader: why bother reading about a book that will have likely no place in your life? That question, though, is one that lurks beneath […]
“We’re in a bad time for everybody. There are very few models as to our way to be drawn upon in any community. There certainly are no states that one could look to and say, ‘A revolution has occurred here; they’re acting better toward people.’ And the religious are going […]
At this year’s MLA Convention, I am honored to be on a panel devoted to “Woolf’s 21st Century Academia”, a panel sponsored by the International Virginia Woolf Society. My presentation, “Poor Queer Studies for a Society of Outsiders” positions Woolf’s Three Guineas alongside Matt Brim’s Poor Queer Studies. However, once […]
This summer, I recommended to everyone I encountered that they take an hour and listen to this podcast conversation between Ezra Klein and Annie Murphy Paul about her new book The Extended Mind. The conversation has so much to say about how we shape our lives, workplaces, and schools that […]
Matt Brim’s Poor Queer Studies is the most exciting book about academia that I have read since Cathy Davidson’s The New Education, and for me personally it is even more exciting than Davidson’s wonderful volume because Poor Queer Studies is about the world I have spent much of my life […]
The Internet Archive has decided to respond to the corona virus crisis by creating what they call the National Emergency Library, and they have gained publicity from the likes of Jill Lepore at The New Yorker, from NPR, and from lots of people who support open access projects, open educational […]
Published almost 25 years ago, Ira Shor’s When Students Have Power: Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy is a book full of practical ideas that will still be of interest to teachers today. Indeed, it’s depressing how relevant is remains. But this is also no surprise. On the second page […]
Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s Generous Thinking helps anyone involved in education think about priorities and assumptions, about how we approach the work that we do. It is not a nuts and bolts book; it is a book that zooms out more than it zooms in. We need such books, because some of […]
Another day, another report of an independent bookstore … doing pretty well. After some apocalyptic years, indie bookstores have been having something of a resurgence. This warms my heart, but it has also got me thinking about what, if any, lessons there are for higher education in the perhaps surprising, […]
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