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Redesigning Design
March 11, 2019I have been doing some “design thinking” (to use the currently fashionable term) which has led to an essay in New Geographies 09 (“Posthuman”) published out of the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2017. It picks up some of the themes in my 1993 essay “Cultural Origins and Environmental Implications of... more»50th Reunion: Personal and Collective History
May 28, 2016Next weekend I will be attending my 50th reunion at Wellesley College. Here (slightly edited) is what I wrote last fall for the Wellesley ’66 Class Reunion Book: Our personal biographies will be all over the map, but almost all of us share a collective biography, which goes something like this: Born at the end of three... more»Inside Out
February 20, 2016After long distraction, I have been catching up on movies, along with much else. Last week I got around to renting “Inside Out.” I was especially eager to see it because of rave reviews and also because it stole my title. Two years ago, when I had the honor of giving the da Vinci Prize Address before the Society of the History of... more»Farms and Chickens Meet Their Doom
April 12, 2015My brother and I are trying to sell 280 acres of mixed farm/forest land near Laurel, Delaware. This has been an education in the value, or lack of it, of some rural land these days. Chuck and I inherited this land from our mother upon her death in 2005. Her father, our grandfather, had been born and raised on Spring Garden Farm, only... more»
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I have been doing some “design thinking” (to use the currently fashionable term) which has led to an essay in New Geographies 09 (“Posthuman”) published out of the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2017. It picks up some of … Continue reading
March 11, 2019
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50th Reunion: Personal and Collective History
Next weekend I will be attending my 50th reunion at Wellesley College. Here (slightly edited) is what I wrote last fall for the Wellesley ’66 Class Reunion Book: Our personal biographies will be all over the map, but almost all … Continue reading
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Inside Out
After long distraction, I have been catching up on movies, along with much else. Last week I got around to renting “Inside Out.” I was especially eager to see it because of rave reviews and also because it stole my … Continue reading
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Farms and Chickens Meet Their Doom
My brother and I are trying to sell 280 acres of mixed farm/forest land near Laurel, Delaware. This has been an education in the value, or lack of it, of some rural land these days. Chuck and I inherited this … Continue reading
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Comments Off on Farms and Chickens Meet Their Doom
fascinating and altogether indispensable…read at once
And that advice [about The Triumph of Human Empire] is given in bold face! Talk about rave reviews! It’s from a Nov. 18, 2014 blog post by Wheeler Winston Dixon, Ryan Professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska. … Continue reading
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Science Fiction at the End of the World
I am happy to report that a long essay review of The Triumph of Human Empire was recently published in Science Fiction Studies. There are a lot of things about this review that make me happy. First, the journal where … Continue reading
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Advice for the History-lorn
My academic project for the summer does not involve writing anything: from that I can use a break. Instead I have been going through a pile of clippings and notes (both hard copy and on-line) accumulated while writing The Triumph … Continue reading
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Our Technological Age, from the Inside Out
Even–especially–in “our technological age,” which is so often equated with “our digital age,” it can be nice to see something you have written in hard copy, on paper. A hand-written letter, for example, or, in this case, the printed version … Continue reading
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A tribute to history museums
I am honored to be part of this short film: http://americanhistory.si.edu/documentsgallery/exhibitions/50th/ It is part of an exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the opening of the National Museum of American History on The Mall in Washington, D.C. The history of … Continue reading
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BBC The Forum: “Uncharted”
In April the BBC weekly program “The Forum” featured the theme of “uncharted,” with yours truly as one of three guests. It’s an intriguing topic for a world where we think everything is charted….until (for example) an airliner is lost … Continue reading
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