Reading Time: 4 minutes Hello again! Well the big move is finally over and I know it’s been a while since you heard from me but now that we’re settled in I wanted to catch you up with all the goings-on out here in Jackrabbit Springs. And is there ever a lot of Spring in Jackrabbit Springs these days! […]
stories
Posted inFiction
5 minutes into the future
Reading Time: 3 minutes It was the tests that ran out. They knew they’d never be able to stop the trade of abortifacients. The tests were a different matter. They owned the companies that made the tests. No test, no scrip. No scrip, no pill. We need to talk about the rabbits So here’s what’s going to happen. We […]
Posted inCulture
How stories made us human
Reading Time: 8 minutes One of the very most human parts of the human situation is our love of stories. It’s how early humans formed groups and stuck together, and it’s how we learn even today.
Posted inMyth & Folklore
My new fairy-tale research: all queer, all the time
Reading Time: 3 minutes Ah, summertime, when academics everywhere finally get to work on our research. Mine, I realize, is focused on queer identities in fairy tales, since that’s the most exciting thing to me right now.
Posted inCulture
Folklore and disability: Insight into identity and power
Reading Time: 7 minutes Folklore and disability interact in many ways, some upholding norms & some challenging them, but I would argue that understanding representations of disability in folklore can yield many insights into identity and power.
Posted inBooks
My personal science fiction/fantasy canon: ‘Weirdo Feminist’
Reading Time: 4 minutes The spring semester is over but my brain is still melted from it and the rest of me is burnt out too, so here’s a fun little personal essay I’d submitted elsewhere and that had been rejected (yes, that happens to even the great Dr. Jorgensen). Ruminations on identity and SFF (science fiction/fantasy) follow.
Posted inCulture, General, Myth & Folklore
Multiplicity Decenters Authority
Reading Time: 5 minutes I’ve been thinking recently about how cultural traditions confer authority, and how in two realms – religion and dance – I see multiplicity dispersing authority (this will make sense after I explain it, I promise).
Posted inGeneral
2020 Was the Year of the Personal Essay for Me
Reading Time: 4 minutes Despite being badly burned out this year, I published two personal essays and had a third accepted. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Posted inCulture, Education, General
If the American Public Values the College Experience, We Should Fund It
Reading Time: 7 minutes I’m out of the academic game for now, but I see a lot of people lamenting that college won’t ever be the same again – and I just keep wondering, were you not paying attention while public funding for it was dropping?!
Posted inCulture, General, Myth & Folklore
Folklore, Pandemic, and You
Reading Time: 4 minutes Being a folklorist in a time of global pandemic is interesting, and our discipline’s insights aren’t as useless as one might think. Here, I go into some of what we bring to the (socially isolated) party.