I have a new piece up on CNN on Trigger Warnings in the Classroom. I make two arguments. 1. Psychological disability involving trauma is serious and should never be dismissed. However, we have a mandate through the ADA to provide reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities. Let’s increasingly support, fund, and use those services, make…
I have a new piece in the Chronicle today on being a “working dad,” a phrase I intend to own and explicate a lot over the next year. It ends: Academic dads operate with the privilege of separating their home life from their work life in ways unavailable to women. We get to be silent…
The issue of trigger warnings in the classroom, whether they are useful, attack academic freedom, are to protect our helicopter-parented elite students, or what, has become a fairly important topic in higher ed circles. I’m writing an essay on it now. Here is a list of resources. Please recommend additional materials. Start with Amanda Marcotte…
Yesterday I spent the day with the Op-Ed Project, thinking more about this new craft (it’s been over a year, but it still feels very new) of public writing. It was an inspiring day and I left it even more committed to developing my public voice and, even more importantly, working to amplify the voices…
I’m off to a workshop today, but wanted to offer a few quick thoughts on a great series of videos. Scope, a British advocacy group, has made an outstanding series of videos that are fundamentally about inclusive society – how to you shake a hand that’s not there, how do you talk to people in…
From http://mimiandeunice.com/2011/01/05/killer-of-scribes/ A week or so ago, on Twitter, Virginia Heffernan introduced me to the word “hyperlexic” in the context of her piece on the speed-reading app Spritz (which Bogost has addressed here). She talked about the way we generally valorize certain kinds of reading, like novels, and dismiss others, like texts or Facebook. However one…
In the last two weeks, I have received a half dozen requests for advice from newish writers looking to expand their readership or break into more formal publication. They all ask me roughly the same questions – how did you do it? Does blogging help? Unfortunately to those seeking my advice, the true answer is…
There have been two debates about privilege recently. One was Tal Fortang’s barbaric yop that he, Princeton undergrad, is not privileged by his whiteness, because his family was persecuted by the Nazis. The second was a Thought Catalog essay on female privilege. The first essay demonstrated two key facts: Tal Fortgang does not understand the concept…
A few weeks ago McDonald’s toys and gender norms zoomed into the zeitgeist, with all kinds of interesting articles, complaints, and even positive corporate response. I blogged about it here. I was pleased that McDonald’s had resolved to change the norms so that kids & parents wouldn’t be asked for boys’ toys or girls’ toys…
Here’s another story about police violence and disability. Here’s another story about the cult of compliance. In Dearborn Michigan, an Arab man was riding home on his bike. He stopped, was approached by police, and failed to comply with a request for ID. According to a complaint in a lawsuit, when he didn’t present ID,…