Quentin's Weeknotes 9/5/20-9/12/20
Haven’t done these in a while, but it feels like time to come back. I find it comforting to take stock of my week, particularly as there is simultaneously so much happening, while at the same time, every day is exactly the same.
This Week:
- It’s Week 2 of MUST250: Collectors and Collecting at Hartwick College, which I’m co-teaching with Dr. Douglas Kendall. This week is about Object Biographies, and I had the students read an excerpt from A History of the World in 100 Objects, about a carved Mammoth tusk in the shape of two swimming reindeer.
- I finished reading Jane Yolen’s book “Cards of Grief.” It is part of a long tradition of anthropological science fiction (anthropologists study an alien culture) but turns that on its head somewhat by having it told from the point of view of the aliens being studied. It’s also a book about grief, remembrance, and art, and written in a lyrical style befitting the poetic subject-matter.
- I did some work re-vamping the hallway display cases at the Museum. The lights in those cases were finicky, to say the least, so we’re trying out some new fixtures.
- I put up some replacement exhibit panels for our exhibit “From Viking to Insight: Henry Cooper and the Quest for Life on Mars”. We installed that exhibit last Fall, but subsequently found that there were some parts of it that needed editing.
- I read:
- a horrifically depressing piece about the chaos that will likely ensue between the election and inauguration by Dave Dayen
- A frankly uplifting and historically rich article by Adam Serwer about the relationship between our current moment of racial accountability and the Reconstruction period after the Civil War
- A modest proposal (actually a radical one) by Alex Pareene that the Democratic party run on competant governance
- A fascinating deep read of the Boston Massacre trial by Farah Peterson that links it to the contemporary moment of scrutiny on policing and police violence.
