I've spent a lot of time in my senior seminar course in the early part of this semester talking about writing, and specifically about the limits and foibles of academic social science writing. I encouraged the students to read widely and write write write, including reading and writing things that challenge their normal interests and … Continue reading Loretto (a poem)
Tag: Personal
Research update
So far this summer I have spent a lot of time traveling, as well as many, many hours dealing with technical and bureaucratic headaches associated with a new IT system at my university. It has been challenging not just to find time to write meaningful and interesting blog posts here, but also to get research … Continue reading Research update
On becoming Canadian
We arrive 10 minutes before the appointed 1:00 pm deadline on my invitation letter. It reads less as an invitation and more as a list of instructions, but represents the final step on my road to Canadian citizenship. The large waiting room is already packed, families in nice clothes, children laughing and running around, those … Continue reading On becoming Canadian
How (not) to conference
In early April, I once again attended the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), this time in Washington, DC. While there, I presented, along with my research assistant/co-author, a paper on the geographies of rotationality in the US and Canadian foreign services. Rotationality is a basic condition of work in almost all … Continue reading How (not) to conference
Two years and some links
I have now been doing this blog, with an increasingly haphazard publication schedule, for two years. The pace of writing has slowed considerably as I have taken on more administrative duties in my department, where I am now undergraduate program chair and the principal academic advisor, tried to buckle down and refocus some effort on … Continue reading Two years and some links
The classroom, redux
Last December I wrote a long, convoluted piece about the university classroom as a space of respect, responsibility, and, possibly, late capitalist hegemony. I want to briefly revisit some of this as I come once again to the close of the fall semester and with another iteration of my first-year introductory human geography course, 45-120 … Continue reading The classroom, redux
Voting from afar
This is a short tale about my voting experience this year in the US general election, scheduled for November 6. I reside and work in Canada, as I have for more than 14 years now, but I am still a US citizen, registered to vote in Kentucky, as I have been since I was 18 … Continue reading Voting from afar
