May 2012

I’ve just spent a few minutes trying to understand a new music genre called seapunk. I’m baffled. Then again music genre is baffling. It would seem that where we once had relative simplicity, we now have something much more vital and chaotic. So what is happening with music genre?...

From “The Big Tall Wish”, The Twilight Zone, Season 1, 1960 by Michael A. Moodian They say a dream takes only a second or so, and yet in that second a man can live a lifetime. He can suffer and die, and who’s to say which is the greater...

Jane Gallop by Natalie S. Loveless 1. Anecdotalizing Theory I always try to get us to that place where learning begins to dance. The anecdote is a slippery knowledge maker, its politics suspect. On the one hand, it claims the authority of the first person, of presence. But...

Much has been written about Matthew Weiner’s meticulous rendering of the '60s in his mega-hit, Mad Men. A lot has been said about set design and historical references, replete with memorabilia, but the real strength of Mad Men has always rested in its vivid character depictions, solid storytelling and...

Westbrook Pegler From Humanities: A cartoon from the 1940s pictures a formal dance party torn about by tuxedoed men yelling at each other, with a woman sitting in the center of the image saying, “All I did was mention Pegler!” She was referring to Westbrook Pegler, a syndicated newspaper...

During my thesis research in the communities of Saban and Huay Max, located in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, I watched how children from three different familial units living on the same housing lot were constantly reorganized and re-circulated as adult family members came and went.

Beth Witherell and Jennifer Ellsworth, graduate students who worked on DARE, listen to one of the more than 1,800 audio recordings made in the field, c. 1972. Photograph from UW-Madison Archives. From Lapham’s Quarterly: The scene is a mysterious one, beguiling, thrilling, and, if you didn’t know better, perhaps...

Council Estate, Paul Cummings, 2009 by Jeffrey Stevenson Murer In ganging up on housing estates, in racist attacks or inter-state brinkmanship, how does the enemy become the Other? This peculiar purification process requires a narrative and a chance to ‘perform a boundary’. For local and national communities, leaders and...

Advertisement for Olivetti Typewriters, illustrated by Ernesto Pirovano From The Chronicle of Higher Education: Is the time spent reviewing other people’s books more important than writing your own stuff, making your own contributions? One of my graduate-student friends has published a number of book reviews, the assignments often passed...