This recent map making the social media rounds depicts the runner-up religions for each U.S. state, based on data from the US Religious Census project. NPR, among others, has discussed the map, attempting to explain the anomalies in the map. Why is South Carolina’s second largest religion listed as Bahai and Tennessee’s Judaism when every other southeastern state is Islam? Why are Delaware and Arizona the only states with Hinduism as the second largest religion? Continue reading “Consequential Maps”
Identifying in Unexpected Places
The unrivaled success of the modern identifier that goes by the name of nationalism is that it is reproduced and thereby reinforced at countless, intertwined sites — I recently posted briefly on the World Cup as one such site but it’s hardly the only one. Continue reading “Identifying in Unexpected Places”
Does My “Wife” Have a “Job”?
Six years ago I took an academic post at a liberal arts college with a heavy teaching load about 4 hours away from Syracuse, New York, where my wife works as a middle school teacher and where we own a home. Consequently, I commute back and forth every week during the fall and spring semesters. Many of my academic friends and colleagues ask me, “Can’t your wife get a job where you work?,” or “You’ve got a good publication record; why don’t you apply for jobs at more research-oriented universities?” Arguably, there are some latent sexist or patriarchal assumptions underlying these questions.
Presumably as someone who identifies as an academic, I have a career — perhaps even a “vocation” — whereas my wife, a public school teacher, has a mere job. Careers have trajectories and involve planning, nurturing, the accumulation of social capital, networking, and so on. A job by contrast could be picked up or discarded for another job which would be its functional equivalent. Why can’t she just swap jobs so I can pursue my career?
The Practice of Moving Beyond Practice
Indeed. It’s All Ordinary
So opens Roland Barthes’ little essay — well known to some, of course — in his collection, Mythologies (read the full essay here). Judging by a recent news story, it turns out that he was right: that the ordinary is continually dressed up as extraordinary and that, at every turn, we make our worlds meaningful by crafting History into Necessity, as he famously phrases it. For the headline of the story, posted here, reads:
And voila, Einstein’s brain is, in the Barthean sense, a myth. Continue reading “It’s All Ordinary”
More Questions than Answers
Well, I’ll take that challenge.
So, here goes… Continue reading “More Questions than Answers”
Walmart Asks: “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
I had to look twice when I was driving in Birmingham yesterday and drove past the local “Walmart Neighborhood Market.” Neighborhood market? Yes, it seems that the corporate giant is expanding yet again…this time with smaller stores. Now Walmart can compete with grocers in more crowded city centers that may not be amenable to its otherwise inexhaustible sprawl. The famous chain is known not only for its low prices but also for widespread criticism of its business practices — complaints that have made so much news as to warrant their own lengthy wikipedia page. Continue reading “Walmart Asks: “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?””
Go Team
I was thinking of writing a post on the World Cup as an exercise in unbridled nationalism… Continue reading “Go Team”
Out of the Mouths of Sailors: Cussing and the Power of the Selective Double Standard
Photo credit: Joshua Eirton
I distinctly remember the day in fifth grade when I was chastised by my peers for not knowing the proper litany of cuss words that, apparently, all fifth graders know. I was the teacher’s pet type who wouldn’t have used those words had I even known them (oh, how things have changed!), but I distinctly remember that my ignorance made me feel babyish and unsophisticated. Of course, I didn’t have the wherewithal at the time to recognize that fifth graders are not usually the standard bearers of maturity and style, but the fact that I could not engage in a secret barter of offensive terms made it clear that my chance at becoming one of the cool kids was being jeopardized by the minute. Another particularly ominous sign came by the sixth grade, the year that I proved that I was inadequately equipped to flip someone off. When I tried, my middle finger simply didn’t look as offensive and foreboding (or, strangely, straight) as the fingers of my peers. In retrospect, only my Reebok high tops saved me. Continue reading “Out of the Mouths of Sailors: Cussing and the Power of the Selective Double Standard”
Jump the Shark
While I’m sure there’s long been lots of people eager to give away the ending to a good play, radio drama, novel, or movie — and yes, I’m certainly one of them — it seems to me that the current fashion of saying “Spoilers…” to make one immune from learning the ending is a good example of how material culture drives social habit, demonstrating that the two are simply different analytic nodes of the same, mutually constituting thing. Continue reading “Jump the Shark”