Blogs

Mrs. Churm has a habit of calling out answers for the TV game show Jeopardy, often while I’m trying to eat a perfectly good sloppy Joe sandwich. Back at the end of 2008, our son Starbuck, six ...

In my previous post I used a recalcitrant subject in an ethnography study, Widow X, as a symbol of all that waits to trip up researchers. Something there is that doesn’t love easy knowledge. My ...

It’s easy to feel an exhilaration verging on hysteria at the start of a big research project; you don’t even know the scope of what you don’t know. As time passes, sources prove to be like ...

It’s a fearful age, and this past week a host of new frights descended on us here in the heart of the country. 1) Last week the town in Southern Illinois I’m writing about, and others around ...

Today my old chum Ben Cohen helps us read the signs right in front of us. Ben is an environmental studies scholar who teaches Science, Technology, and Society (in the Engineering School), and ...

Do you know the writer Thomas E. Kennedy? I’m embarrassed to say I only learned of his work a couple of years ago. Though he’s had devoted fans for decades and won many of the top prizes, ...

When my novel (due out July 1) was accepted for publication, I announced it here under the title, “Hot Dog! My First Book!”. Today I have the pleasure to say I’ve signed a contract for my ...

The more biographies I read, the more I sense the difficulties of the form. Many are patchy, uneven; the herky-jerk of a life doesn’t play to the modulated rhythm of story. Biography may be the ...

Today I have the pleasure of posting an interview with Catherine Gass, who’s been the Photographer at the Newberry Library for the last ten years. The Newberry, an independent research library ...

The last couple of years have brought reportage (see here and here, for instance) on scholars becoming involved with activities of the U.S. military. One wonders what will develop under the new ...