I took a semi-writing break this week, playing with my kids and re-charging energies, as well as experimenting with homemade soba noodles (good flavor, texture not quite right yet, in case you were wondering) and finger limes (delicious!).
Mostly, this week I provided links rather than my own writing, with the one exception here - Handwriting with Tears; Don't cry for cursive. I wrote about my own experience as a dyslexic person and the importance of typing for me. I urge you all not to reflexively re-tweet the NYTimes (and now everyone else) pieces smugly urging the preservation of long-hand writing without thinking about the ableist context. That doesn't mean the pieces lack value, to the contrary in fact. But we can focus on outcomes rather than means here.
Since writing the piece, I have found dozens of positive responses from writers and scholars whose lives were changed by easy access to typing and printing. It's anecdote, not data, but that seems significant to me.
I also looked at a snide little tweet from Karen Kelsky - I enjoy being a man! - Thoughts on criticism - and thought about the ways that my writing about fatherhood will have to navigate some troubled waters. I am going to have to signal, early and often, to liberal women in particular, that I am trying to write a new kind of approach to fatherhood (a feminist approach). That's useful data.
I also got mail this week from an adjunct at a big local university saying, "Oh yeah! Well if men have it so good, why isn't there a men's studies program!" Maybe more on this next week.
I had a post calling for reactions to the MLA proposal to re-think the dissertation and then rounded up some resources Against the monograph dissertation.
Finally, in disability writing, SCOTUS declared the the End of [the phrase] Mental Retardation and Tom Shakespeare wrote about Disability and Happiness for BBC magazine.
Have a great Sunday.
