Yesterday, I decided to deactivate my Twitter account. I’m just waiting to download my archive (if that remains a thing under the new regime) and I’ll be gone. As I said in my last thread, I’ve watched as Twitter, a place I once loved, has decayed into a fever swamp of vitriol and hate. IContinue reading “Farewell, Twitter”
Why STEM can’t answer today’s hard questions
If STEM wants to solve the big problems, it’s going to have to solve for more than technical questions, but also for the values questions that precede them
Connecticut as Borderland
Anne is from New York City (Stuyvesant Town, on the Lower East Side). I was born in Hartford and raised in Massachusetts. My parents were both raised in East Hartford. When, after living in DC for ten years and with a new baby, we had the opportunity to come to Connecticut in 2010, it seemedContinue reading “Connecticut as Borderland”
Briefly Noted for May 27, 2021
I read Zach Carter’s magisterial biography of John Maynard Keynes, The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes. Not only is it a super-readable education in economics and a sweeping history of the 20th century told through the prism of one of its most important intellectual and political figures, it alsoContinue reading “Briefly Noted for May 27, 2021”
Sourcery: “Disruption,” Austerity, Equity, and Remote Access to Archives
I’ve spent the last 24 hours thinking about and responding to Mark Matienzo’s recent post about Sourcery and its response on social media. I’ve enjoyed engaging in the concerns Mark raises and I’ve learned a lot from the conversation it has spurred. Everything Mark wonders and worries about in connection with Sourcery are things weContinue reading “Sourcery: “Disruption,” Austerity, Equity, and Remote Access to Archives”
Correspondence Course
During the depths of the lockdown in March, I imagined a course for our times that would be completely free of digital technology. I was frustrated with administrative rhetoric that seemed to put means ahead of ends in stressing how best to “go online” over how best to “deliver a quality distance education” regardless ofContinue reading “Correspondence Course”
Briefly Noted for November 24, 2020
I just finished Alan Mikhail’s God’s Shadow, an excellent history of the Ottoman Empire told through the lens of one of its greatest leaders, the Sultan Selim, who ruled the most powerful empire in the world (outside of China) in the 16th century. It provides a much appreciated rebalancing of early modern European history awayContinue reading “Briefly Noted for November 24, 2020”
Farming in the Suburbs
I write bad poetry from time to time. I use this space to record it. I wrote this one in August, when the days were longer, social distancing easy, and online school a fading memory. Please feel free to skip it. We got some heirloom kale seeds in MarchIn egg carton planters seedlings stood tenContinue reading “Farming in the Suburbs”
Rethinking ROI
This semester I’ll be co-chairing our President’s “Life-Transformative Education” task force, a signature initiative to rethink undergraduate education at UConn. Part of a coalition of similar efforts at other universities across the country, the basic idea of LTE is that an undergraduate education should change (or at least actively reconfirm) the worldview and life trajectoryContinue reading “Rethinking ROI”
Briefly Noted for October 24, 2018
Caitlin Flanagan’s eloquent description of how histories, true or false, operate in families (e.g. Elizabeth Warren’s family): How many times during my childhood did my father tell me that when his grandmother and her sister sailed to America, they had traveled ‘a class above steerage’? I was a Hula-Hooping child of the atomic age, growingContinue reading “Briefly Noted for October 24, 2018”
