If you watched the first game of this year\’s World Series, you joined millions of people around the world in observing a moment of silence for Colleen Ritzer, the high-school math teacher from Danvers, Mass., who was killed by a 14-year old student on the school grounds. You would have observed the same moment of […] … learn more→

As you get older, you might laugh about the occasional senior moment when you have trouble remembering a name or date. But, real dementia is no laughing matter. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than an estimated 35 million people across the globe suffer from some form of dementia. By 2050 that number […] … learn more→

Recently back from the Manchester Metropolitan University Summer Institute in Qualitative Research, a heady kaleidoscope of Deleuzean post-qualitative research ponderings. I am (incredibly jet-lagged and) completing a proposal for a 4-person symposium at a forthcoming conference in Australia. While in this conjunction of the summer school and conference worlds, Laura McInerney’s blog in praise of […] … learn more→

Now, in most areas of the country, residents do not live far from warehouses. While they are inconspicuous and do not bother most people, they usually pollute a lot. In a warehouse, people use forklifts and other machinery. Furthermore, when using shipping items and boxes, a company will often overuse supplies. Sadly, must if this […] … learn more→

An AAUP report this month on the case of John Boyle, an assistant professor of linguistics at Northeastern Illinois University, raises once more the problem of using the vague term “collegiality” in questions of the granting of tenure. The NEIU president, an AAUP posting on the case says, ”cited only two reasons for denying tenure: […] … learn more→

You are about to go under the knife. Perhaps you are having a routine gallbladder removal, or maybe it is a more complex surgical procedure, like the removal of a tumor. As the anesthesiologist moves the gas mask toward your face, you glance at the surgeon and wonder: How well prepared is the person wielding […] … learn more→

Many of us in my generation (I received my Ph.D. in 1986) have compelling memories about the graduate seminars we took in our formative years. Those seminars, a professor and 10 or 12 students, were crucial to my graduate-school experience. They formed the threshold of my graduate career, part of the process by which I […] … learn more→

Some one once asked me what a president does all day. They thought, like so many others, that presidents held out tin cups traveling the world searching for alumni with money. I replied that presidents are better thought of as King Solomon determining how to divide the baby. They behave most days as nineteenth century […] … learn more→

Kale is the \’superfood\’ du jour. Is kale a true superfood that leaves all others in its dust, or is it a case of hype over substance? The truth lies in a little from column A and a little from column B. Kale is a leafy green vegetable which is part of the cruciferous vegetable […] … learn more→

On a late February day in 1805 in the South Pacific, Amasa Delano, master of the Perseverance, a sealer out of Boston, boarded a distressed Spanish ship carrying about 70 West African men, women, and children. Delano spent about nine hours on the vessel, called the Tryal. He talked with its sailors, who were few […] … learn more→