Best Pieces: Medieval, Cult of Compliance, Personal, Disability Rights

I had 93 essays published in 2017. Whew. I published 55 in 2016, so it’s fair to say that things have escalated dramatically. I am still developing as an essayist, but am grateful to my editors, collaborators, interlocutors, and especially the folks who read me. Thank you.

Here are a few pieces of which I am especially proud:

  • How to Teach a Cyborg (The Atlantic). I’m hoping this one helps change the laptop debate. Because even if you believe the studies are proof positive that laptops are bad, banning tech is a short-term solution. Let’s collaborate on long term ones.
  • Bodily Autonomy will Unite the Left (The Nation): Our issues, whatever they are, intersect around the principle of bodily autonomy.
  • How Florida Criminalizes Black and Autistic Children (Pacific Standard): My longest reported feature of the year on the ways Florida schools are threatening the future of two (and many more) disabled kids. 
  • Make Vinland Great Again (Washington Post): My intro primer to white supremacy and medievalism in the age of Trump.
  • Donald Trump ain’t no Henry II (CNN): This piece explores a core facet of the Trump administration. He’s got a court, not a bureaucratic modern government. 
  • Disability and Death Row (Pacific Standard): How many prisoners on death row are disabled? Pretty much all of them. Death penalty abolition is a disability rights issue.
  • Down syndrome and Storytelling (Pacific Standard): I made J.K. Rowling cry with this piece on how my son tells me stories and teaches me to presume competence. 
  • The New Blood Libel (Pacific Standard): On being Jewish, and a medievalist, in the age of Trump. 

Thanks y’all. See you at This Mess in 2018.

(Edit: 92 pieces, not 91. Had one go live today).

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