BY PAUL STEPHENS In early 2012 I thought I had discovered the perfect title for my new project, which was to be a diary of my information habits. I wrote up several pages of notes under the title “Confessions of an Infomaniac.” Several weeks later I Googled the phrase, and to my chagrin found the … More Meditations of an Infomaniac, Part 2 of 2
BY PAUL STEPHENS My iPhone slips from my hand and lands on the subway tracks. I glance down the tunnel and don’t see a train. I’m carrying a heavy bag containing a Macbook Pro, an iPad and a dozen or so books. The digital signboard says the next Manhattan-bound train will arrive in one minute. … More Meditations of an Infomaniac, Part 1 of 2
Simplican, pictured here with her brother, discusses the range of diversity in people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). BY STACY CLIFFORD SIMPLICANPostdoctoral fellow, Michigan State University Today is World Autism Awareness and Acceptance Day. The organization Autism Speaks is promoting a “Light It Up Blue” campaign to encourage individuals and whole cities to go “blue” … More Autism Awareness Day 2015: Adding "acceptance" and "alliance" into conversations about autism.
Frank Paul, “Flying Man,” on the cover of Amazing Stories 3, no. 5 (August 1928). BY ADNAN MORSHEDAssociate professor of architecture and architectural history at the Catholic University of America A hundred years have passed since the world’s first scheduled passenger airline service. In Florida, on January 1, 1914, a Benoist XIV airboat flew from … More How early aviation inspired American utopianism
Christopher Freeman and James J. Berg, editors of the forthcoming volume The American Isherwood (January 2015), have compiled exemplary essays about writer Christopher Isherwood’s craft from their students to share on the Press blog leading up to the publication of their book. If you are attending the 2015 Modern Language Association conference in Vancouver, stop … More Students on Isherwood: "Come Again, Sir. I Don’t Get You," on death and dissociation in A Single Man
Two men in handshake during San Francisco Marriage March with banner, “We all deserve the freedom to marry.” Photo from Creative Commons. BY AMY L. STONEAssistant professor of sociology at Trinity University in San Antonio For about six months I’ve considered writing an update to Gay Rights at the Ballot Box, my book on the … More Goodbye, Marriage Bans. Hello, Duggars.
Lance Wyman, designer, Mexico ’68 logo, 1968 BY LUIS M. CASTAÑEDAAssistant professor of art history at Syracuse University A recent analysis of financial data provided by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) attempted to quantify how much the Olympic brand is worth today. The analysis, in many ways a problematic one, found it to be worth … More The continuing influence of the Mexico ’68 Olympics brand
Ralph Waldo Emerson ca. 1857. Photograph: George Eastman House Photography Collection BY MARTHA SCHOOLMANAssistant professor of English at Florida International University I. Toward a New New Abolitionism Abolitionism, the movement formulated in the United States north to bring about an immediate end to slavery in the US south, was, in its moment, the watchword for … More Ethical Geography: How abolitionists used spatial practice to reject their own authority
What if the movement for climate change joined forceswith the movement for a nuclear-free planet?Image via Flickr/public domain license. BY SHAMPA BISWASPaul Garrett Professor of Political Science at Whitman College A recent opinion piece in the New York Times made an interesting observation by juxtaposing two prominent social movements of our times. The piece pointed … More A sustainable planet is a nuclear-free planet.
When the Edison phonograph was first made in the 1890s, people used it torecord their own voices. It later became one of the first commercially producedmachines when it was used to play music. It worked by vibrating the stylus up and downwhile moving across the wax cylinder (Hill & Dale method).Image credit: Museum of Technology. … More Where do cultures go when they die? The story of Codfish, the Indian, and the phonograph.
