Summer plans

My last post feels like a lifetime ago, along with the positive hopeful attitude it reflects. The end of the the semester is always a sprint, but it has become much moreso now that I have taken on a faculty governance role that entails participation in faculty meetings and Board meetings. I feel drained, exhausted, and irritable. But soon it will be over, and I will be able to experience my first “normal” summer in many years — uninterrupted stretches of time to devote to activities primarily of my own choosing. Between the pandemic, buying a house, and then doing a ton of travel, this hasn’t happened in a while. Other than the pandemic, all of those things were net positives for my life, yet they didn’t represent the kind of recharge and regroup I’ve thought of as a normal part of my annual routine.

This summer, we’re planning only one trip, to the UK, taking advantage of a conference invitation. There I will be presenting some initial research drawing parallels between the Apostle Paul and the Qur’an — which I believe to be a genuinely novel scholarly niche I’ve discovered. Before the conference, we will hang out in Edinburgh, then we will spend a weekend in London before heading back home. And then, aside from a weekend trip or two, I will be settled at home for the entire summer — a prospect I am relishing.

Obviously I have to prep for classes somewhat over the summer. For two of them, that shouldn’t be a problem. I am offering Logic and Critical Thinking through the philosophy department for a second year in a row. The first iteration was successful, and I have good notes that should make an updated syllabus the work of an afternoon. I also have the unique opportunity to teach a half-semester Honors Seminar on Watchmen, covering both the original comics and the HBO series. Reviewing those works and some of the critical literature on them should not be burdensome. Finally, I’m offering Shimer’s seminar course on logic and math for the first time — something I only wanted to take on once I had the standard textbook approach to logic under my belt. A retired colleagues has offered to work with me on that and give me some guidance in how to organize and run the class, which due to the subject matter tends to be more structured than our typical free-wheeling discussions. I’m hoping that working through some Aristotle and Euclid at first hand will lay more groundwork for me to eventually return to Hegel’s Logic — I have a book on Hegel and Aristotle pencilled in for my winter break reading.

My biggest project will be a book on Star Trek, for a University of Minnesota Press series on franchise storytelling co-edited by Gerry Canavan and Ben Robertson. I plan for it to be a relatively short work, somewhere between the length of Why We Love Sociopaths and Neoliberalism’s Demons. I am taking a somewhat unusual approach. Most scholarly overviews of Star Trek focus on the foundational moment of The Original Series and the huge popularity and cultural impact of The Next Generation, then conclude with a decline narrative as subsequent spin-offs enjoyed less commercial and creative success. Often the last nail in the coffin is the hated prequel series Enterprise, which is regarded as a total creative dead end.

I’m taking a different approach and actually starting with Enterprise, viewing it as the beginning of a new era for Star Trek — an era in which it becomes much more self-conscious of its status as a franchise, more self-referential, and increasingly obsessed with returning to its foundational moments. My chapter outline is as follows (with an intro and conclusion, of course):

1. Enterprise
2. The “Novelverse” (a sprawling continuity that developed in the tie-in novels after the cancellation of all the shows meant that they were unlikely to be “overwritten” in the foreseeable future)
3. The Abrams reboot films and IDW tie-in comics (since the production team initially chose not to have novel tie-ins for the new films, comics took on an unexpectedly central role in fan culture after being marginal for most of Trek history)
4. Discovery (covering all four extant seasons, despite the bizarre 900-year time jump that happens in the middle)
5. Picard (which conveniently ended its run mere weeks before I plan to start writing, providing something of an organic “stopping-point” for the streaming era of Star Trek)
6. Homage Series (covering Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds)

The goal is to use what I call “late Star Trek” as a model for the challenges and opportunities that franchise storytelling opens up, as well as the obstacles and deadlocks that model inevitably confronts. And since this is Star Trek, I will naturally have to address the ways that commercial imperatives distort or contradict the franchise’s anti-capitalist post-scarcity ethos and the unexpected directions this famously “optimistic” and even “utopian” franchise takes its social commentary. I have actually managed to keep up some semblance of a research routine even in these extremely busy weeks, so I have some good momentum here — and it’s obviously a topic I am quite passionate about and have been thinking about a lot.

My hope is to have a full manuscript to submit by the end of summer vacation, though I don’t think it would be a big deal if I wound up taking a little longer. And because I am a weird person with a unique lifestyle, this whole process does not stress me out or intimidate me in any way. I am genuinely looking forward to it. I miss writing, and this is both a “fun one” and a labor of love. If I don’t point out the genuine artistic achievements of Enterprise, who will? Literally no one, that’s who!

And more than that, I am hopeful that this will help me continue my journey toward feeling more like “myself” after some really hard years marked by a lot of stress and uncertainty and some pretty serious burnout. Some of those things will obviously continue — I have one more year of meeting-o-rama due to this governance role, and my Shimer colleagues and I are going through back-to-back years of evaluations to finally regularize our faculty status at North Central after a long probationary period — but I hope I can regrow some resilience through a period of relative solitude and self-directed creative work.

So there you have it! Maybe not the best blog post I could have written, but I feel like I have to put some points on the board to keep up with Beatrice’s Substack, to which all AUFS readers will definitely want to subscribe.

Former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany attacked as a "traitor" and "disgusting" for praising Pence

2024 presidential hopeful Mike Pence doesn't seem to understand how much Republicans hate him for not overturning the election when he demanded it. And here's another clear piece of evidence he'll ignore: when former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted praise for Pence, saying that "his patriotism, love for the country, and love for his Savior on full display," she faced a storm of backlash from MAGA supporters, who called her a "traitor," a "turncoat," a "RINO," and a "disgusting" person. — Read the rest

How I Use My Nolty Planner

I’ve written various reviews of Nolty planners and notebooks, but I don’t think I’ve gone into too much detail about how I use my Nolty planner. These lovely Japanese diaries have some features that make planning, habit tracking, and list-keeping very convenient for me. The Nolty Efficiency Notebook has various page layouts. It starts with … Continue reading How I Use My Nolty Planner →

NewsNation reporter "roughed up" and arrested for reporting in Ohio

NewsNation journalist Evan Lambert was arrested yesterday in Ohio while reporting at a news conference. Reporters had been asked to keep quiet while Gov. Mike DeWine made remarks about a train derailment, and apparently correspondent Evan Lambert angered officials as he continued to report live. — Read the rest

What Are Violent Environments?

Edge Effects editors recommend readings and podcasts on violent environments in anticipation of our new themed series.

The post What Are Violent Environments? appeared first on Edge Effects.

Faculty Favorites: Savor These Books on Food and Agriculture

Seven scholars from a variety of disciplines recommend readings about land, labor, animals, and people in the food system.

The post Faculty Favorites: Savor These Books on Food and Agriculture appeared first on Edge Effects.

DMTV Milkshake: The Minimalists on Paring Down (and Living Better)

Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus of The Minimalists have built their careers on helping people live better with less stuff, via their best-selling books, films, live events, and The Minimalists Podcast, co-hosted by T.K. Coleman. On this episode of Milkshake, we speak with all three, as they trade off questions about minimalism, maximalism, and how to consider the objects in our lives.

For those who find this lifestyle philosophy convincing, the key might be easing into it: “There’s no need to get rid of your grandmother’s doily collection right away,” says Fields Millburn, noting that “people tend to struggle with sentimental items.” There are probably other places to look: “Start with the things that are easy to give you the momentum: Have you been in your closet lately? Have you noticed that most of the clothes you own you don’t actually wear? It’s okay to let go of anything you haven’t worn in the last year. We have a rule called the 90-90 rule – we also refer to it as the seasonality rule. If you’re holding onto something that you haven’t worn in the last 90 days, and you know you’re not gonna wear it in the next 90 days, you can give yourself permission to let it go.”

We asked how minimalists give gifts: “The best gift that I can give is the opportunity to help another human being feel, seen, heard, appreciated, validated in a way that matters to them,” says Coleman. “That’s what really matters. You can impress people with things. You can make them jealous of you. But you can’t ‘money’ your way into love. So when you’re trying to get a gift for someone [and] you pay a lot of money but your heart’s not in it, they’re gonna see right through it. But if your heart is in it, they’re gonna see what really matters.”

Also in this Milkshake, we ask how the pandemic changed minimalism, how to determine what’s junk and what’s essential, and where the hosts might permit a little bit of maximalism into their lives. Tune in for the answers!

Diana Ostrom, who has written for Wallpaper, Interior Design, ID, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets, is also the author of Faraway Places, a newsletter about travel.

Milkshake, DMTV (Design Milk TV)’s first regular series, shakes up the traditional interview format by asking designers, creatives, educators and industry professionals to select interview questions at random from their favorite bowl or vessel. During their candid discussions, you’ll not only gain a peek into their personal homeware collections, but also valuable insights into their work, life and passions.