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Heidelberg 2012
Thursday I don’t frequent the Evil Empire that much anymore, but Starbucks is getting my patronage today because it seems to be the only place in Heidelberg that offers air conditioning. It is stunningly hot here—ninety-plus degrees, no breeze, and not much to speak of when it comes to shade, as the Old Town features…
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Scene from a Research Trip: Ish Sauce
I grabbed my wallet and followed Jen into MaMa BaBa’s Deli, half of a small cinderblock building standing next to Boston Post Road somewhere in Milford, Connecticut. Though all its signs were new, the deli’s cracked parking lot needed a fresh coat of blacktop and its front windows sported ads for Boar’s Head Meats, the…
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THATCamp@Penn: Thoughts on the Day
When I was a kid, my parents sent me to the Summer Arts Camp at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. SAC was a six-week program focused on the arts, where other campers and I chose from different courses taught by CHC faculty and independent artists—usually, I think, taking four or five courses a summer. SAC…
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Why I Tweeted (Parts of) My #dayofhighered
April 2, Monday of this week, was the first online #dayofhighered. Inspired by the #dayofdh that those in the digital humanities have conducted since 2009, Inside Higher Ed blogger Lee Bessette proposed the #dayofhighered as a way of describing to the public what, exactly, academics do all day. Lots of people participated by tweeting their…
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Illustrating the Elevator Talk
Like every grad student out there, I frequently hear the question, “What’s your dissertation about?” At this point, I have a pretty good 30-second answer, which goes something like this: I’m working on children’s cartoons in twentieth-century China. I’m especially interested in the Sanmao comic strips, which ran off and on from 1935 to the…
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“Marley was dead: to begin with.”
The plummy voice of Julie Andrews rings out through the Grand Court of Center City Philadelphia’s Macy’s store every hour on the hour throughout the month of December. As children (and more than a few adults) crowd for seats on the floor of the Grand Court, Andrews invites them to enjoy the Christmas Light Show,…
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On Rereading Gatsby
For well over a decade, I’ve been listing F. Scott Fitzgerald as one of my favorite authors. I went through an intense Fitzgerald phase in high school, enthralled by his descriptions of flappers and bootleggers whooping it up during the Jazz Age while unconscious of the troubles ahead of them. In retrospect, I have to…
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Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!
It’s only October 29, but Philadelphia got a good dose of snow today. Things started out rainy this morning … But by early afternoon, it was truly snowing. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, this is only the third time since 1884 that the city has experienced a measurable snowfall in October. It’s a bit bizarre…
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Questions and Answers
“Is it good to be home?” “Do you miss California?” “Which do you like better, the East Coast or the West?” I’ve heard all of these questions, each one multiple times, since I arrived in Princeton at the end of the summer after three years in Southern California. I never really know how to answer,…
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Selling Thin in China
After stating in my very first post here yesterday that I wanted this space to be about more than just China, I’m going to jump in with a short piece about … China. Today is the National Organization for Women’s Love Your Body Day, an event designed “to send a positive message to women and…
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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 