Deb Haaland’s confirmation is about more than identity politics

On March 15, U.S. Representative Debra Haaland (D-New Mexico) was confirmed as Secretary of the Interior. The appointment makes Haaland the first ever Native American person to hold this position, and the first ever Native American cabinet member.  The confirmation vote was largely along party lines, with only four Republican senators voting in favor: Lisa Murkowski …

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Predatory Journal of Liberal Arts and Humanities Stole my Identity

About a month ago, I got an irate email from a stranger. This person, another academic at an American university,  wondered how I could possibly agree to be on the editorial board of a journal that had recently spammed her inbox with an invitation to contribute a paper.  She noted the ungrammatical and unidiomatic prose with …

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Syllabus for 6856: Modernity, Rationality, and Irrationality

LIT6856: Modernity, Rationality, and Irrationality, Fall 2018 Course Meetings: Fridays, periods 3-5 (9:35 AM-12:35 PM); in TUR 4112 Instructor: Professor Susan Hegeman / shegeman@ufl.edu/ 352-294-2815 / TUR 4119 Office hours: Tuesdays, 11:35-1:35, or by appointment Course Description A nearly axiomatic definition of modernity, usually associated with Max Weber, emphasizes the increasing rationality – and rationalization …

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Normalized Gun Violence…or a New Student Movement?

(first published February 19, 2018) Last Wednesday, the day that seventeen young people were murdered in their school in Parkland, Florida, one of my own children’s teachers interrupted the regular curriculum to talk to them about what to do if an “active shooter” showed up at their school. Here’s what he told them: If the shooter is in the …

Continue reading Normalized Gun Violence…or a New Student Movement?