By Any Other Nerd

I started the first of my last 30 Fridays by submitting  my QPP . That's right--30 Fridays left.  The breakdown of that is pretty easy.  2 semester, 15 days in each semester equals 30 Fridays left.  That's a countdown I can get excited about.   It means many things for me.  It means I can begin to look at vacations as actual vacation time to which I can enjoy time away, rather than banking time for June sessions.  It means I can see a somewhat return to normality in terms of not working 4 long days at work and commuting into UMB once a week.  It means that I have made it through seven semesters and have 2 semesters of a challenging schedule.  It's exciting to see this in my focus.   Beyond that, the first day back was light.  I have two classes but only one met, Sociological Perspectives in Higher Education who is taught by a professor that I enjoy a lot for the different ways he gets us thinking about any subject...

I've submitted it.  The Qualifying Paper Proposal (QPP).  It's the first serious piece of work we submit on the path to our dissertation.  The program has students submit a QPP in which students identify a problem and a proposal to study the problem.  That is the proposal is to ultimately write the Qualifying Paper (QP), or a significant literature review exploring the problem.  If all goes well, this gets folded into our Dissertation Proposal (DP).  If all the stars align, the QPP, QP, and DP become the first three chapters of the dissertation (substantial revisions notwithstanding--or rather, completed expected)  So it is kinda a big first step.   We started on this path back in June when we took the course associated with the QPP.  It was a 3-week writing workshop that helped us fine-tune our ideas to put them into some kind of coherent sense.  We submitted a rough draft to the instructor in mid-July and then continued working ...

The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle by Peter Baldwin My rating: 4 of 5 stars Ok, so a book about copyright sounds utterly uninteresting to most people. Why not an epic poem about curtains or an opera about nail-clippings? Seriously, it's not that bad and in fact Baldwin's book explains a great deal things about the origins of copyright, why it so damn complicated, and how it has been shaped in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe through interactions, trade agreements (and disagreements), and competition among the different countries. It's a history that to the emergence of printing as an industry and explains the origins of our most basic understanding about copyright, discussing such topics as what it means for a work to be inalienable (or alienable), what is the public's interest in protecting copyright, where did moral rights come from (and evolve to), etc. It's expansive in its coverage but clear in its de...

I got a lot of reading done in August for many different reasons (to be discussed in future blog posts). But like July, there were some great gems in this month's reading! Mindful of Race Understanding and Transforming Habits of Harm  by  Ruth King So many of us are enmeshed in this discussion of racism that sits at the heart of American culture and  sit  with so much pain and frustration about how to reconcile it, how do we heal, and how do we move forward. In this context, King's book is a Godsend! She breaks the book into three parts which she frames around the metaphor of diagnosis (of heart problems), heart surgery, and recovery. It's a useful framing device that allows her to help readers to first identify the problem of racism and its effects throughout our lives. In this section, she helps lay a strong foundation for anyone to understand how so many in the US experience racism differently and particularly, why white folks don't see the problem while so m...

The Infinity Gate by Sara Douglass My rating: 4 of 5 stars For me, this book is so bittersweet. While The Wayfarer Redemption trilogy (the second trilogy) in the series had a full sense of closure (in fact, I was at first surprised when Douglass returned to this fictional world), this book does not. It outright tells you that there is so much more that's going to happen. And that's all well and good, but unfortunately, Douglass passed away in 2011, which means those adventures are never to be written (at least, by her; there's a part of me praying she left outlines of books to come and her estate is just looking for the right person--maybe one chosen by prophecy--hahaha--to pick up the pen on her behalf). So in that regard, the book's entire movement feels like an act of reluctant engagement for the fan-reader because it ends (the book) but it doesn't (the adventures) but it really does (because we never get to know what those are). Beyond that, the book is ...

Death's End by Liu Cixin My rating: 5 of 5 stars Where do I even start with this one? I'm not even sure I could describe the plot and if you haven't read the previous two books, then don't bother. But I do encourage you to read the previous two because it makes this final book all the more epic. Liu's intricate plot about how humankind survives past the early and hostile confrontations with alien life is mesmerizing. Both in weaving believable science and believable human psychology together, Liu explores a future that feels real and fantastical only because it hasn't happened. This tale begins after the peace has been established between humankind and the Trisolarans but this is a tenuous peace that self-destructs shortly after the selection of a watcher is unwilling to sacrifice the Trisolarans and humans. Thus, the tension of the second book is quickly reprieved but soon, the Trisolarans are surprised by other loose ends that lead humankind ...

Learning as a Way of Leading: Lessons from the Struggle for Social Justice by Stephen Preskill My rating: 4 of 5 stars Preskill and Brookfield examine the concept of leadership and reframe successful and meaningful leadership as a means and willingness to learn. They then explore how that frame of leader as learner plays out in different ways of learning (learning by asking others, learning by critical self-reflection, learning by sharing responsibilities and power, etc), the challenges with each way, and an iconic leader that has embraced that way. While the book's main chapters can feel formulaic, the ideas are still powerful and I appreciated their different approach to leading. For those in higher education, the merits of this book are perfect but even beyond that, I think that if a leader were to reframe his or her work as an active learner, it might mean more positive changes within organizations and communities as it creates more possibility for leaders to change...

The Twisted Citadel by Sara Douglass My rating: 4 of 5 stars The second book in the DarkGlass Trilogy, Douglass's final trilogy following the adventures of Axis and the characters in the world he inhabits. I liked the book because like she always does, Douglass turns the prophecies she creates on their head and because we see a side of Ishbel that becomes increasingly into her own and creates a life on her own terms. The plot is standard Douglass: a powerful and scheming god-like powerful evil is trying to conquer the world but is held back by people (Maximilian and Ishbel) that it (referred to as The One) knows can do it harm and therefore must find a way to eliminating them. Add to this, a dying race (the Icarii), a newly discovered race, (the Lealfast), a race on the brink of destruction (humans) by a race of evil creatures (the Skraelings) and questionable alliances among some of them. This volume in many ways is a mad--chase to Serpent's Nest which will become Echo F...

I published the first post in this series back in March--about five months ago.  I thought I had already read a good deal of books on the subject and thought to some degree that I had a good list .  But in the five months since, I've read another thirty or so books that would fit on this list, so I thought I would have a final -final post on the series--not on reading topics that address whiteness, racism, white supremacy, and people of color's struggles and resistance against systematic white supremacy, but just a thought about the process and reasoning behind it all.   My approach as I've said elsewhere is that I read a lot of books on this subject matter as an inoculation of sorts against the dominant narrative within our culture that absolves itself of responsibility for the historic and contemporary systematic marginalization of people of color in the US and the world as a whole.  In a world in which a blatant and open race-baiting, sexist, xen...

Another book of amazing books!  I got in a lot of listening but not necessarily a lot of reading--only one book (but it was a great one!).  We were moving this month so I was a bit busy with that (but always an opportunity to listen to audiobooks while packing away, right?).  I also read more graphic novels because I had been light in my reading of them of late (besides the ones that I'm reviewing).   In other interesting news, I was featured in Inside Higher Ed for my proclivity for audiobooks and using Goodreads .  In other words, I was recognized for the audiobook nerd that I am!   So what are the books that wowed me this month?  Check them out: Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley by Emily Chang Chang critical look at the misogyny and chauvinism of the tech industry that sits well with books like  Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy ,  Algorithms of...