By Any Other Nerd

How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America by Heather Cox Richardson My rating: 4 of 5 stars In the wake of the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection, this book feels all the more poignant and essential for reading and understanding the modern party politicals of the Republican Party. While the book starts in the founding of the country, its major focus (as the title indicates) is understanding how the pretext of the Civil War and its aftermath reinforced a central privileging of white men at the disregard and disposal of women and people of color, who despite legal changes in the 1800s were still marginalized and second-class citizens throughout the 1800s, 1900s, and even still in the 2000s. The central argument that she makes is that the founders of the country and the leaders of the South invoked the language of freedom and individualism as the grounds of the United States,...

Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes I don't have an exact date of when "it all changed." I just know that it was the summer of 2011. I had bought my first pair of Vibrams , I was doing lots of walking, and wondering if these new-fangled shoes had anything to offer in terms of my decades-long feud with running. I had my doubts but I also had time on my hands.  When I say I was walking a lot, I mean 5-8 miles a day; I had been maximizing the use of my first-gen Fitbit at that point as well.   It started in part because I was teaching at UMASS Lowell and would have to trek up there twice a week from Peabody.  I had decided that maybe walking the lake in Wakefield might be a good workout before or even after class and somewhere when deciding to do that, I also decided that I might try running.  It started with running from one telephone pole to the next telephone pole--not rushing, just feeling it out.  Then, I would walk to the next telephone.  Steadily ove...

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury My rating: 4 of 5 stars I always grapple with this book. I've read it and taught it a few times over the years. In terms of storytelling, it's enjoyable. We follow Montag, a firefighter of the future whose role is to find and destroy written works--particular books. Of course, Montag finds some level of corruption in the system he works for and he, himself, is eventually seduced to keep a book. This simultaneously opens up a new world of consideration for him to come to understand why the world has decided that books are threats to one's mind and also puts in direct conflict with his work and a threat to those around him. So the story explores his departure from mainstream society to marginalized society with the sense that this less-road traveled is more important (which given that road is book-reading and one is actually reading a book to discover the story adds a nice meta element to the story). Wh...

Estimated Reading Time: 4.5 minutes The following is a Letter to the Editor I wrote to Inside Higher Ed a few months ago that never got published.  Given it's about the transition back to the office for higher education, especially instructional designers, I thought I would share it here since it was never published but I think is stillan important contribution to the conversation.  And since I'm talking about work culture, if you're not reading Anne Helen Peterson's Culture Study newsletter, you really should be. Our not-so-new offices? Here is what I wrote: Joshua Kim's thoughts about keeping campus online learning teams permanently remote are important to consider as indeed, many institutions have missed opportunities for amazing talent and a more diverse staff while offering possibilities to create more pathways for inclusion.  Those are valuable elements to such a team.  Yet, I can't help thinking that those would not be the actual reasons an institution ...

Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price My rating: 5 of 5 stars There are many moments in this book where I had to pause and wonder, wait, is this author snooping in my mind. That is to say, this book is highly relatable to many of us growing up in American culture where there is the constant push to do, do, do, and if you're not doing 10,000,001 things, then you are lazy as hell. Any bad things that happen to you are a direct consequence of that laziness. It's an idea that permeates so much in our society from how politicians discuss public resources (and those "deserving") to how we engage with children throughout education. Price calls bullshit on this idea and they (quite ironically) work hard to illustrate the falsehoods embedded in our conceptions of laziness as well as the significant social, cultural, and individual harm that results from this disposition. As a social psychologist, Price points to a variety of research...

Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes Ok, so by the time this is released, I realized that many folks will be well past the point of using Zoom or other video conferencing as much as many of us did during the height of the COVID pandemic.  Still, if you find yourself using it in the future, I thought I would share some tips that can be used to develop community and connection in video conferences.   Map the Room This activity is great if you know you are working with an international group or can be tailored if you know the full geography of people participating.  Find a map of the world-- I often go to Creative Commons to find mine .  Also--bonus points if you find a map that does not center the United States or the Atlantic Ocean-- like this one !  It offers an opportunity for people to interact, a bit of playfulness, and to understand where people are currently located.   Source: Wikimedia What to do: Open up the image of the map on your computer. ...

Screening Reality: How Documentary Filmmakers Reimagined America by Jon Wilkman My rating: 4 of 5 stars Wilkman provides a fascinating look at the role of film in re-presenting reality. The book doesn't focus on the news but rather the realm of documentaries captured video of important events (e.g. Kennedy assassination), reality television as a genre, and ephemeral content since the birth of film.  What's striking about this book is that the average reader might not realize just how much nonfiction video exists and how much they have been exposed to over the years, but by the end of the book, they'll see a much richer web of such content throughout their viewing engagements.  It's a fascinating and thorough piece of work that brings readers up to the election and few years or so of the Trump presidency; making an argument of sorts, directly and indirectly, that our fascination with film and our inability to come to a clear consensus about h...

Estimated Reading Time: minutes This is a bit of a delay of an update but my colleague and friend, Dr. Danielle Leek and I published an article in April and I really share it and talk about it.  I had the glorious luck of getting to meet Danielle when I was taking a Civic Engagement course at UMASS Boston taught by Dr. John Saltmarsh.  We had some solid interaction but it would be months later when Danielle reached out to me to chat as she started a new job in the realm of academic technology that we really started to talk, share ideas, and collaborate.   Over the last few years, we have given presentations at conferences, run day-long workshops, and had many a great conversations.  There are many great conversations for us to have--our academic and personal Venn Diagrams are strong.  However, one area that we knew we had a lot to say was about digital service-learning. Obligatory paragraph on service-learning and what digital service-learning is.  Se...

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable My rating: 5 of 5 stars Manning's detailed biography of Malcolm X is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the depths of Malcolm X during life and afterward. Manning moves in chunks from years to months to days depending upon the research available and draws upon various records, personal accounts, and materials that have been made available some 40 years after Malcolm X's murder. The thorough detail is complemented by a nuanced and mindful prose that continually provides a clear sense of what's going on in the world, in Malcolm's life, and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. Manning's most striking contribution is how he highlights the complex demands and obstacles in Malcolm's life and how he captures Malcolm's evolving and changing attitudes based upon the different experiences from his rising leadership and falling out with the Nation of Islam, to the rewardi...