Gem of the Day

Tues, Jan 26

Here is a lovely sentence from one of my students' rough drafts. Her topic is racial discrimination on US Census forms:

"Before they even characterized themselves as Negros, people of that race would check the “slave” box due to the fact that white was the only race that was important during the late 1700s. "

OMG.

Signs of the Times

First off, the fashion photo:

Mon, Jan 25

Next, a little diatribe:

Tonight in my "Victorian Poetry" class, my teacher started talking about how the Victorians lived in a time period "with all these issues - religious issues, scientific issues..." She was actually making a very good overall point which is why I didn't make this comment in class, but the vagueness of her description of the "issues" made me uncomfortable. Every era has issues - religious issues, scientific issues... The difference is what those issues are, and perhaps those issues even to some degree define the boundaries of that era. Now it's gay marriage, stem cell research, and are video games rotting our brains? In the early Modern era, it was the Reformation, dissecting the human body, and is the novel rotting our brains? In the Middle Ages, it was celibacy of the clergy, germ theory, and are those pesky minstrels rotting our brains? I find myself really needing to do extra reading to get a historical perspective on the Victorian era and to understand its "issues." But I really don't want to.