I have been intrigued by Oliver Sacks for a while, but only recently actually read him. Someone like Oliver Sacks is so desperately needed: someone with all the right medical credentials who has also thought deeply about the moral implications of modern neurology. Unfortunately, I don’t think Sacks is what he is promised to be.Continue reading “First Thoughts on Oliver Sacks”
Category Archives: Books and Politics
“Lessons in Obedience,” reading Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life
Anne Sullivan, Helen’s “Teacher,” describes her initial encounters with Helen thus: As I began to teach her, I was beset by many difficulties. She wouldn’t yield a point without contesting it to the bitter end. I couldn’t coax her or compromise with her. To get her to do the simplest thing, such as combing herContinue reading ““Lessons in Obedience,” reading Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life”
Politics, Teaching, and Disability
The current moment is highly charged with political potential energy. It’s a new year, there’s a new president, and, on a more local level, we in Indiana are working on a new state budget. So I felt like this might be a good time to discuss a political issue not often brought up, particularly asContinue reading “Politics, Teaching, and Disability”
Questioning Rehabilitation
Given that the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is more than twice that of people without disabilities (7.3% vs 3.5% in 2019) there are two major explanations. One, people with disabilities lack the essential skills to gain employment, and two, workplaces are not accessible to people with disabilities (remember that unemployment rates only considerContinue reading “Questioning Rehabilitation”
Reading “A Brief History of Neoliberalism”
David Harvey sheds light on a question I have asked before on this blog in connection with Peter the Great: Why do we obey? Or rather, why do people sometimes act against their own best interests? Why do the many “let” the few take advantage of them? This question is perhaps not as mysterious asContinue reading “Reading “A Brief History of Neoliberalism””
Neoliberalism in Contemporary Czech Fiction
I have at last finished Pavla Horáková’s Teorie Podivnosti, a book chosen more or less at random from the pool of “highly-acclaimed contemporary popular Czech fiction” as a kind of experimental sampling. What is Czech literature currently like? How is it different from American popular literature, and what kind of world-outlook does it evince? ToContinue reading “Neoliberalism in Contemporary Czech Fiction”
Book Review: “The Secret Life of Stories: How Understanding Intellectual Disability Transforms the way we Read
This book’s greatest strengths and greatest drawbacks are intertwined. For example, rather than focusing on a detailed look at the function of disability in a few texts, Bérubé moves quickly between a huge range books, leaving me with the impression that I don’t fully understand his arguments, but also giving me effectively a reading listContinue reading “Book Review: “The Secret Life of Stories: How Understanding Intellectual Disability Transforms the way we Read”
Over-monitoring and “The Anxiety Toolkit”
This is an unusual topic for me to take up in this blog. For the most part, I write about plants and fungi, occasionally books and movies. But today, for some reason, I feel like taking up a psychological concept, “over-monitoring,” which I’ve encountered in Alice Boyes’s book The Anxiety Toolkit. I took up thisContinue reading “Over-monitoring and “The Anxiety Toolkit””
Book Review: The Borderland of Fear: Vincennes, Prophetstown, and the Invasion of the Miami Homeland.
First of all let me say I give this book five stars. It’s not easy to find books about Native American history that don’t either treat Native Americans as uncivilized savages or as romanticized heroes. I started, but had to put down, A Sorrow in our Heart, Allan W. Eckert’s Hollywood version of the lifeContinue reading “Book Review: The Borderland of Fear: Vincennes, Prophetstown, and the Invasion of the Miami Homeland.”
Neurodiversity and Literature: Thoughts on Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood
Today I finished Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood, a book I enjoyed a lot, and yet felt like it could have been more. I kept expecting the memoir to open up, from an exuberant description of her idyllic childhood, to a more general reflection on the world in which she grew up and her placeContinue reading “Neurodiversity and Literature: Thoughts on Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood”
recycled paper clips 