Reading Time: 3 minutes I am what you might call a “disenchanted academic.” I went straight from high school to undergrad to grad school, and finished my PhD in 2012. I only found job stability a few months ago, and it’s as a lecturer at a wonderful liberal arts college, not as the tenured professor I’d dreamed of becoming. […]
Jeana Jorgensen
FOXY FOLKORIST
Studied folklore under Alan Dundes at the University of California, Berkeley, and went on to earn her PhD in folklore from Indiana University. She researches gender and sexuality in fairy tales and fairy-tale retellings, folk narrative more generally, body art, dance, sex education, and feminist/queer theory. Her blogging seeks to make academic research and concepts more broadly accessible, with a focus on not only bringing folklore to the broader public but also making claims about identity, narrative, and culture in an increasingly secular world.
Posted inHealthcare
White supremacy is killing us in many ways, including COVID
Reading Time: 2 minutes If you’ve been paying any attention, you know that white supremacy and related hate groups pose a large problem in the U.S. The Southern Poverty Law Center finds in their 2021 report on extremism that extremism has become embedded in mainstream U.S. politics. And USA Today notes an all-time high in white supremacist propaganda in […]
Posted inSexuality
Jada and Will’s open relationship is none of your business
Reading Time: 3 minutes While the main focus of the recent Oscars ceremony has been on the joke that played a role in the violent interaction between Will Smith and Chris Rock, I think the jokes about the Smiths’ open relationship bear discussing, particularly the false assumption that they cause violence. Before I jump in here, I want to […]
Posted inReproductive rights
When abortion is a joke
Reading Time: 5 minutes My college folklore professor Alan Dundes, a scholar often credited with creating the modern field of folkloristics, was an energetic teacher and learner with both a love and an encyclopedic knowledge of the field. When he gave a lecture on “sick” jokes to a hall filled with hundreds of students, I was fascinated. Even though […]
Posted inPolitics
I would like to wish Republicans a very nice ‘shut-up about children forever’
Reading Time: 3 minutes The Senate Republicans interviewing Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson can’t suddenly pretend to care about children, can they? Oh, no…no no no…
Posted inCulture, Religion
Why I’m glad I didn’t read the Bible until high school
Reading Time: 3 minutes When I look back at my childhood, I guess I was a bit of a heathen growing up. My parents didn’t make me attend any kind of religious education, and they weren’t too into it at home, so I grew up without a holy book in my life. And honestly, I think it made me […]
Posted inFiction
Our future
Reading Time: 3 minutes It happened just like they teach it in schools. It wasn’t even the plane crashes that did it. We were up to one a month, sometimes more. Not terrorism, just things breaking. Everyone kept voting for deregulation, and everyone else kept voting to keep those people in office. You’ve learned about voting in school already, […]
Posted inBooks
Babes + booze 4ever: A review of “Girly Drinks” by Mallory O’Meara
Reading Time: 3 minutes When you hear the phrase “girly drinks,” what comes to mind? Probably pink drinks and cosmos, white wine, and sweet fruity stuff. But what if I told you these concoctions are a pretty recent development that actually reflects a centuries-long history of men trying to exclude women from developments in various important aspects of alcohol […]
Posted inSex & Gender
If you believe in sex differences, you’re probably sexist
Reading Time: 3 minutes If someone claims to see “sex differences”—apparently concrete and non-varying differences between men and women—I can be reasonably sure that they’re sexist, or that they benefit from sexism, which is basically the same thing. The whole notion of “sex difference” is somewhat outdated, along with “sex role” which we now call “gender role,” but the […]
Posted inCulture
Soulmates? No. The person who changes your tire at 10pm in 10-degree weather? Yes.
Reading Time: 3 minutes As someone who studies non-monogamy and the messed-up gender norms in heterosexual relationships, I’ve never been super into the concept of soulmates. It sounds nice on paper, but I’m more interested in proof, like who has your back when the going gets tough. One of the main points I’ve made about non-monogamy in the past […]