Journalist – Historian – Speaker
For Pacific Standard, I write about the free speech complexities of the upcoming “free speech week.” First, the organizers didn’t even ask the speakers or book the spaces before they started crying oppression. Second, “security concerns” forced the Anthropology department to cancel a long-planned talk. I write: “Thanks to “safety concerns,” the annual distinguished lecture …
Why #DeafInPrison Can’t Call Home.@MarshallProj covers HEARD’s years-long #PhoneJustice battle. https://t.co/1FMnKveSt4 — HEARD (@behearddc) September 19, 2017 Glad to see this from The Marshall Project. Right now, most deaf detainees and prisoners have absolutely no telecommunications access,” said Talila Lewis, volunteer director of the nonprofit Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf communities (HEARD), …
CONTENT NOTE: This post includes many quotes with slurs of all sorts. Please be advised. Incredibly, there seems to be a debate among serious people about whether Milo Yiannopoulos is actually all that bad. It’s easy to forget that most folks aren’t spending that much time paying attention to online issues, so are unaware of …
I spoke with On the Media about Taylor Swift and Medieval Studies and Nazis, in response to my Pacific Standard article. There’s a lot going within medieval studies right now, but I don’t want us to forget this. White supremacist appropriation of medieval content is ongoing. We shoudn’t forget the students at University of Nevada Reno who …
I will be sending the following email to the President of Vassar. Dear President Bradley, I am a medieval historian and a journalist, writing in support of Assistant Professor of English, Dr. Dorothy Kim. Dr. Kim is a brilliant scholar and one of the foremost leaders in ongoing efforts to confront both the shameful legacy …
It started with a tweetstorm in May. Let’s talk about #BodilyAutonomy as a core Democratic party value. A core American value. Is there a better term for it? More catchy? /1 — David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) May 8, 2017 Grumpy at the “let’s stop with identity politics” takes, I offered my thoughts on how we …
A professor of Atmospheric Sciences stepped down (he was 70) at the University of Illinois rather than appropriately address accommodations in his classroom. His emails to the student emerged in the process, including one he BCC’d to the entire class saying disability support (and perhaps Graddy herself – I know nothing about how they identify) …
There’s a lovely and thoughtful op-ed about “Sex at Wesleyan” written by an alumna with whom I must be roughly contemporary (I graduated in ’95). She articulates this: As much as you may read about the angry cries of “social justice warriors” in current news, today’s students discuss sexual assault in a completely new way. …
A little late now, but Catherine Kudlick wrote a great piece on Labor Day without Telethons. Paul Longmore would have had a lot to say today, the first Labor Day without telethons and without Jerry Lewis. His deeply-researched book, Telethons: Spectacle, Disability and the Business of Charity suggests that he’d be thinking big picture. Most …
Miami-Dade County has vowed to forcibly institutionalize all homeless people who don’t get off the streets. The temptation will be to say this is for their own good and to look past it, but disasters do not mean that disabled people lose their rights. Moreover, notice how the article (and others like it) only talk …