A fellow academic said to me recently, just offhand: I’m a professor, so of course I like answering questions. And I thought: that’s my worst fear. I’m a professor because I always want to be improving my capacity to *ask questions. Of people, of the world, in every way.
Ursula LeGuin on the weight of liberty, and a road trip with kids that set her dreaming: sarahendren.com/2023/11/1…
Rediscovered Blur’s Think Tank today. Like I forgot it ever existed, which is all but impossible in the network era. Time machine. What a great record.
One of our staples around the house is a berry compote—just frozen raspberries and frozen cherries dumped together and cooked down a bit. No sugar needed. We have it around all the time for oatmeal, French toast, dessert.
You’d think after all this time being encouraged, cajoled, now forced to use Outlook, I’d give in and accept it. And yet
I’m teaching Writing About the Built World next spring. I’d love to hear your favorites (criticism on architecture, design, or technology, with “criticism” very broadly defined): sarahendren.com/2023/11/0…
Triumph of the diagnostic? (At least) two opposing narratives on disability and freedom. Trying to get to some of the complexity in my field these days: sarahendren.substack.com/p/triumph…
One big engine of my work remains something like: Revenge-Love Songs from the “Physics for Poets” crowd
A wood shop, an architect, the history of machines, and the art of making one-armed tools. I have a short film in the making: sarahendren.com/2023/11/0…
Robertson Davies on charity as the last lesson: sarahendren.com/2023/10/3…
And I get to hear the Faure Requiem again this coming All Souls Day. A good week.
New Alice McDermott novel comes out tomorrow. Can’t wait.
This q and a with David French on authoritarianism and the threat of Christian nationalism is so good. Even if you disagree with him on most political matters, his careful position and sense of history here is clarifying, sobering, generous and generative. www.youtube.com/watch
We’re hiring at Northeastern: Design, Civic/Social Values, and Democracy. Open rank, broadly defined. Please share with folks you know? northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/car…
Never been so glad to be paying $$ for newsletters and journalism, rather than get analysis on latest news via social. I am not the product to be bought and sold. I pay and I get reliably smart and mixed strong thinking.
After finishing Wendell Berry’s magisterial Jayber Crow, I started and stopped several novels before picking up a favorite writer from the 90s: Robertson Davies. Every bit as enjoyable as remembered, stylistically, and thank goodness I have forgotten the stories. Reads like the first time.
Depressing as hell: even very smart folks with YouTube channels do that thumbnail treatment with colorful ALL CAPS PROVOCATIONS to get clicks. It must be working, because it’s everywhere.
Curious if profs/teachers here do a module on “how to reasonably argue in seminar.” We can easily *say: refer to the text specifically; your anecdotal experience is welcome, also insufficient on its own; no “vibes” critique, no ad hominem. But I sure would like an elegant activity to demo all.
“All sports involve some kind of disabling impediment, in the form of rules that restrict the ways in which one can achieve the object of the game…. sarahendren.com/2023/09/1…
Two things I might have studied, if I hadn’t been such an incurable melancholy poet type: midwifery or constitutional law.