Online Education

Starting this summer I have been developing some online classes for both International Studies and Anthropology at the University of Memphis. I’m excited by the prospect, and at the same time I am facing what I hope will become a productive tension between the technology of learning and the technology of the Internet. In this blog post I want to unravel that tension and jot down some fragments of ideas for the future. For any students who might be reading this, when I use the term “technology” here I am talking …

Knitting, Materialism, and Spirituality

The hardest part is maintaining just the right amount of tension. Too little and the yarn doesn’t maintain its shape. Too much and you can’t fit the needle through on your next pass. I don’t normally knit during meeting: I worry that the clicking of the needles will be a distraction to others. But, one day in the spring I brought my knitting in with me to work on a project. As I sat in the meeting house I started to reflect on spirituality and materiality. My key point in …