Looking back over the week’s writing to think about my round-up, I was immediately drawn to Wednesday’s post on offensive language. There are, I think, ideas here worth exploring. I started with the principle: You do not get to decide whether I should be offended by something you do or say; you only get to…
I spent the last two days as a guest at Virginia Tech. On Thursday, I spoke about my current scholarly project on stories of material exchange in the Venetian mythographic tradition. The audience was mixed, with undergrads, faculty from Tech and other area schools, and even a few people from the community. They stayed awake…
Today I am talking to a group of undergraduates at Virginia about public engagement. So here are some links from my own writing for examples: Me: My Initial Public Offering (Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/22/2013) History: The New Franciscan Revolution (CNN.com, 9/20/2013) Pope Francis’ Wager (Atlantic.com, 5/24/2013) The Importance of Being Francis (Atlantic.com, 3/14/2013) History…
Today I am flying to Virginia to give a talk at Virginia Tech. This talk is on my core research into medieval Venetian cultural history, a subject I mostly keep away from the blog (as I use it to write about other things). But here’s one thing I’m going to say this evening to what…
Here’s my principle on language and offense: You do not get to decide whether I should be offended by something you do or say; you only get to decide whether you care. Here’s what I mean. Someone uses language I find offensive. I call them on it. They cannot decide for me whether it’s ok…
Somehow I missed this story from a few weeks ago: A few weeks ago I wrote about Pope Francis removing the “Bishop of Bling,” a German Bishop known for his expensive lifestyle, from his diocese. Here’s the update (now a few days old): Francis orders the multi-million dollar (euro!) home to be used to serve…
Last Monday, I posted a clip from a talk that I gave at Northwestern as part of a workshop on work/life challenges. Hosted at a place of employment, I set out to talk about these issues through the lens of how we can make our work environment fit into the rest of our life. On…
For people who follow sports, lately there’s been a wave of conversation about locker-room bullying and what it means. A player for the Miami Dolphins, Jonathan Martin, outed another player, Richie Incognito, as a bully. Threatening and insulting (racial slurs) voicemails were uncovered. In the initial wave, many critiqued Martin, the person bullied, for defying…
I’m at a convention and in a hotel with the whole family. Leaving home with the kids is exhausting so I’ll be brief today. But while in the restaurant with my children, I had this thought (again. I’ve had it before): When you see children acting terribly in public, do not judge. It’s not that…
I didn’t set out for this to be Disney-week on thismess.net, but here we are. Sunday I discussed an art project to critique Disney via applying the princess lens to our heroines (and the ways that people read that art project so differently). Tuesday turned to the “History Princesses” and a critique of the Daily…