Clips Archives - Page 22 of 26

The Flaws of ‘Do What You Love’

Published at Chronicle Vitae on September 30, 2015. “Do what you love” (DWYL) is a command under the guise of inspiration and affect. Seek professions. Train for them. Love them. Work, DWYL whispers, is only valuable if you love it. Work, it insists, is about emotion, feeling, and meaning. Shouldn’t we love what we do? How can […]

A Q&A with Miya Tokumitsu

Published at Chronicle Vitae on September 30, 2015. Passion becomes the main motivator for one’s work. This happens in academia. Pick a topic that interests you. Dedicate 6, 7, or even 10 years of your life to this topic of inquiry. Value your work above all else. Your job is more than a job; it is […]

September 11

Published at Bearings on September 9, 2015. I tried for years to explain to my students how the memory of that day still stops my breath, and how I viscerally knew the world had changed. I think about George W. Bush’s certainty about the division of our world into good and evil. About his insistence […]

There Be Monsters: A Warning

Published at Sacred Matters on August 28, 2015. I have a hard time watching The Walking Dead. I hate to admit this as a scholar of zombies, but I will anyway. The show is hugely popular with viewing audiences, and fans of zombies, who first proved skeptical of this melodrama with monsters, have come around. On […]

Out for Coffee

Published at Killing the Buddha on July 28, 2015. “Coffee. Mama coffee. Hot. Burn baby,” my toddler says to me while pointing at my plain white mug. “Mama’s coffee,” I respond with a smile. He often pretends to drink coffee from his older sister’s pink Barbie mugs. My almost-two-year-old associates me with hugs, kisses, cuddles, […]

Words to Live By

Published at Killing the Buddha on August 26, 2015. I got another tattoo. A black and gray owl with wise eyes rests on my right bicep. A locked heart lays on its chest. Its claws grasp the key. I get tattoos to mark the transitions, those shifts in my life that suggest nothing will ever be the […]