I wrote this piece over three years ago when my daughter was two years old. It was my attempt to work through my conflicting relationship between my academic work and parenting. I wanted to document how I always felt torn between my desire to be a “good” mother and a “good” academic. I felt I […]
I’ve published my first non-academic book review over at BookTrib. I reviewed Jennifer Senior’s All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood (Ecco: 2014), which I adored. I recommend to all parents, and anyone who wants to understand why parents act in the erratic ways that we do. (Hint: It has something to
The Parenting Paradox Read More
I gave up many things for graduate school, and popular fiction was one of them. Training to be a religious historian meant that reading became my job rather than my beloved hobby. I only had time to read the 30 plus books assigned for seminars each semester. I’ve never read so much in my life
Genre Fiction Saved My Life Read More
I’m not kidding. Really. I made it onto the site. No, I’m not all of a sudden a celebrity, nor did I do something distasteful enough to be noticed (much to the relief of my family). Instead, it is the fault of Neil deGrasse Tyson, or rather, it is the fault of my recent piece
Look, I made Gawker! Read More
Recently, a contributor to the Daily Kos noted that Noam Chomsky, the “legendary linguist/philosopher,” analyzed the zombie apocalypse for a group of students in a Skype session. What students? What kind of class? Where? (There’s no mention of these salient facts). A student asked Chomsky about the current preoccupation with zombies and the apocalypse in
On Chomsky and Zombies Read More
My most recent piece, The Hard Business of Letting Go, is more emotional than my other pieces. I dwell on what it is like to realize that a dream is dead. What happens when you are forced to let go and move on? How do you feel when you confront that hard truth? What if you no