January 23rd 2012
Posted under childhood & fluff & happy endings
Archive for the 'happy endings' Category
January 14th 2012
Posted under Gender & happy endings
Thou Shalt Not Rape
No, I haven’t renounced my longstanding ressentiment and mistrust of football at any level of play, from Pop Warner through the NFL. It’s an appalling waste of money that pretty much sums up nearly everything that’s wrong with our culture, in universities and in the nation at large: profligacy, the wage gap, male supremacy, obsession with inconsequential trivia, anti-intellectualism, and the abuse of women. But, I’ve go no problem whatsoever with Tim Tebow. I don’t care about his public religiosity (although it’s not really my style). I’m impressed that a nice-looking, successful, and wealthy young man has taken a vow of chastity before marriage, not because I value chastity in particular, but because this is also effectively a vow not to abuse women sexually and not to rape them.
Even by comparison to most other professional or college athletes, football players have particularly poor records of abusing women, raping them, or even as we learned last year about Tebow’s teammate Perrish Cox, raping an unconscious woman, and denying it even after a DNA test of her fetus indicated that he was its father. Continue Reading »
January 12th 2012
Posted under happy endings & local news
Thanks for the memories!
Book weight, that is, not body weight. Our recent discussion of clutter, inspired by the super-detailed and super-creepy installation “Barbie Trashes her Dream House“, has inspired me to donate the shelves full of books I no longer read or use. I’ve just removed four boxes and large bags of books off of my shelves, and I’m just getting started. Whichever organization calls me first to ask if I have any good, re-useable household goods, books, or clothing, and offers to pick my donation up from my front door, will be the beneficiary.
I’ve lived in this house for ten years–by far, the longest place I’ve ever lived in my adult life. And I’ve bought or been given a lot of books over the past thirty years. I was wondering, aside from the household clutter angle, why now? Why get rid of the excess books now, instead of sometime during the 1990s, when I moved ten times in as many years and was always packing and moving and unpacking those damn boxes of books. It’s perverse, no?
December 22nd 2011
Posted under fluff & happy endings
(From White Christmas (1954), with Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen, Danny Kaye, and Bing Crosby.)
Actually, there’s no snow on the ground here in our New England holiday enclave, but that’s OK–in northern Colorado we’ve had snow on the ground since the week before Halloween, so it’s a nice respite. Those of you who are traveling, travel safely. Those of you who are staying put, enjoy!
November 30th 2011
Posted under American history & childhood & Gender & happy endings
Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft:
[Ruth] Marcus states that “I may sound alarmingly crotchety here, but something is upside down in the modern world, which has transformed [Kansas teenager Emma] Sullivan into an unlikely Internet celebrity and heroine of the liberal blogosphere[.]” You don’t sound crotchety Marcus, you sound insane. Sullivan was too mean in her tweet about a politician? And you claim to cover these people?
Something is upside down in this world when a so called journalist can get this up in arms over a tweet that is disrespectful to a pol while being just fine with the past decade in Washington, DC.
Ruth Marcus, a supremely silly woman, is nevertheless only reflecting the reality of the world for people under age 30 or so. Teenagers and young people aren’t permitted to talk back to nasty pols, even passively through Twitter. Continue Reading »
November 20th 2011
Posted under art & fluff & Gender & happy endings
The serious conversation about campus “police” brutality will continue below, but for those of you looking for a little Sunday morning light entertainment, see Amanda Krauss, the Worst Professor Ever, on the feminism of Parks and Recreation and the overall awesomeness of Ron Effing Swanson, man’s man and feminist icon.
I wish I could watch Parks and Recreation more often, but out here in the Mountain Time Zone it’s on at 7 p.m., and I’m ususally still feeding watering the horses. Continue Reading »
October 17th 2011
Posted under fluff & happy endings
Enjoy, nerds! Although I’m disappointed to hear that MY nerd joke–saying when nature calls that “I must Remember the Ladies“–didn’t get a single vote!
See you tomorrow.
October 1st 2011
Posted under American history & art & fluff & happy endings
Glitter on the highway! Hope your weekend travels are safe, fun, and loving!
September 14th 2011
Posted under Gender & happy endings & publication & students & women's history
We want YOUR article!
Mary Berkery, the Managing Editor of the JWH e-mailed me last month to help spread the word about a new graduate student article prize. Here are the details:
Journal of Women’s History Graduate Student Article Prize
The Editorial Board of the Journal of Women’s History is proud to announce the initiation of a biennial prize for the best article manuscript in the field of women’s history authored by a graduate student. Manuscripts in any chronological and geographical area are welcome. We seek work that has broad significance for the field of women’s history in general by addressing issues that transcend the particulars of the case or by breaking new ground methodologically.
Manuscripts should be submitted electronically, along with a cover letter specifying the author’s graduate advisor, program, and status (i.e., year in program, ABD, etc.), by March 1, 2012 to each member of the committee: Durba Ghosh (dg256ATcornellDOTedu); Pamela Scully (pamelaDOTscullyATemoryDOTedu); and Judith Zinsser (zinssejpATmuohioDOTedu).
The winning author will receive $3000, and the article will be published in the Journal of Women’s History.
Now, that is some serious do-re-mi, in addition to a very nice publication line on your CV, friends. Check out the current issue here, which just happens to include a very generous review of my book in an essay by Rutgers University’s Jennifer Mittelstadt, “Women Participants in Armed Violence.” Continue Reading »
September 13th 2011
Posted under American history & conferences & Gender & happy endings & students & women's history
I heard a rumor recently that Mary Beth Norton will retire from Cornell University this year*, and I was delighted to hear that she’ll be honored at a conference organized by a few of her recent students. (Apparently, some special people got e-mailed invitations already; I guess mine must have fallen out of one of the fiberoptic Pony Express intertubes in Nebraska, or something! Thanks to reader Perpetua for bringing it to my attention.)
On Friday, September 28th, participants will gather at the A.D. White House for a series of sessions inspired by distinct aspects of Professor Norton’s scholarship and teaching. That evening, attendees will continue the celebration at a catered reception at the Johnson Art Museum. The conference will conclude with a morning roundtable and brunch on Saturday, September 29th. If you are interested in contributing a brief paper to one of the sessions, please email Molly at mwarsh@tamu.edu or Susanah at ssromney AT gmail DOT com.
The conference is being organized by two of Professor Norton’s former students (and now historians), Susanah Shaw Romney, PhD ’00, and Molly Warsh, BA’99. The event has received generous support from Cornell’s History Department; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Society for the Humanities; and numerous other on-campus and off-campus entities.
You can go to the conference blog and sign up for updates by entering your e-mail address. I hope that Mary Beth will get a good audience for this event–she has always been among the most enthusiastic of women’s historians, and a very generous mentor and colleague to junior scholars like me. Continue Reading »