Sexual harassment uses the erotic to conceal what it really is: bullying. I don’t deny that bullying may be erotic for the bully, and that sex as bullying might be even more exciting. But why should we who are trying to solve the problem concede that sexual harassment is sex? What’s confusing about banning sex in … More Sexual harassment is about power
This post was originally published at Public Seminar on February 7, 2018 When people ask me what I am teaching this semester, I bury the lede. I first describe my exciting, five-section strong introduction to Internet studies. Then there is the big reveal: “I am also teaching a core course in our history graduate program,” … More Why We Return to Certain Books Like Clockwork
This post was originally published at Public Seminar on January 24, 2018. Dear Frank Bruni, You and I have a lot in common. We are both gay. We are both white. We are both card-carrying members of the well-educated, Northeastern, liberal elite. We both voted for Hillary Clinton (OK, my politics are to the left … More Is Football a Metaphor for Political Culture?
Somewhere in between the assertion that Donald Trump has done nothing in his first year, and the President’s own claim that he has done everything, so many more things than ever before, believe me, is a record of action and inaction that will take years to fully understand. According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on November 5, 65% … More Death and Taxes
Recently I stumbled across an article in The New York Timesabout my favorite topic: online academic rage — and whether it spikes among those frustrated by the struggle to find a tenure-stream job. “Is there something about adjunct faculty members that makes them prone to outrageous political outbursts?” Colby College sociologist Neil Gross asked. Citing recent … More Angry About Adjuncting?
The National Football League (founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football League, and relaunched in 1922) opens its 95th season tonight, and former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has no job. While the many experts who populate television, radio, and web forums claim that Kaepernick’s unemployment has nothing to do with the political … More Why Colin Kaepernick Isn’t Working
With all the cheerful talk last week about a nuclear confrontation with North Korea, a number of people in my social media feeds have been obsessing about how much our collective civil defense skills have eroded since the 1960s. However, a quick trip to the National Archives digital collections has reassured me that we have nothing … More How to Survive a Nuclear Attack
Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: the Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (New York: Viking Press, 2017.) Democracy in Chains, historian Nancy MacLean’s account of James McGill Buchanan andpublic choice economics, has caused an unusual stir in the few months since its publication. You may have followed the lengthy and determined attacks on MacLean, … More What Are the Costs of Libertarianism?
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