Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Every year, Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, hosts about 3000 medievalists for a giant, sprawling, conference that I call MedievalCon. It has its significant academic context, but it’s also embraced seriously fannish elements (or had them thrust upon it). On Saturday nights, there’s a panel hosted by the “Pseudosociety,” in which academics deliver humorous satirical …
Content Note: Rape, Abuse, Violence Intersectionality is often used in very positive ways – to affirm multiple identities, to demand voice for the multiply marginalized, and so forth. This is valid and vital, but I read the source material (Crenshaw’s work) as saying something less pleasant. To me, the core message of intersectionality is that …
My first ever op-ed was published in the Minneapolis/ St. Paul Star Tribune. It was in 2006 and on the use of medieval rhetoric to talk about modern problems in the Middle East, a situation that continues today. Over the weekend, the Star Tribune published this full-page ad raising the worst kind of fear-mongering about transgendered …