Archives for 2024

  For two years I planned my full-year sabbatical, something colleagues said would be a life-changing experience. My sabbatical days were filled with research and art-making. By spring, making art nudged research out of the picture. I was transitioning from an art hobbyist to an art professional. The thought of spending ...

During the week of my fiftieth birthday, I was surprised to receive a letter and membership card from AARP—American Association of Retired Persons. Upon inspecting the envelope and its contents, my mind traveled back to a brief, yet profound conversation I had with my grandmother, who I call Queen ...

Lurking on social media the other day, I listened to colleagues discussing how to respond to a student paper in a philosophy class. The assignment was about our responsibilities towards (nonhuman) animals. The student argued that we can do whatever we want with animals because God has given us dominion ...

(An audio recording of this blog post may be found here.) One of the first requests I received in my new role as Director of the Wabash Center was to convene a group of “late-career” scholars. I said no. The friend requesting the workshop explained that they had participated in ...

Teaching Introduction to the Hebrew Bible is one of the most challenging—and enjoyable—parts of my job. It shares some of its challenges with any other large humanities class: how to keep students engaged, reading closely, and asking sophisticated questions while they sit in a sea of their peers. ...