I don’t own a smartphone. I like to call, wryly, what I have a dumbphone. It does calls and texts and no internet things. I once owned a smartphone, but downgraded several years back, during a period of time when being a starving grad student temporarily got way too real. Now I could easily switch… Continue reading The Culture of Upgrades
A few weeks ago, some friends and I took a trip up to the Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn. It was definitely a must for me, since I’m a student and teacher of American religious history. For a long time, I’ve been fascinated by the complicated, often tense interactions between religious traditionalism and the modern world,… Continue reading Tales of the Hasidim
Recently, I saw this image making its rounds on facebook: First it made me chuckle, and then it made me sad. The expression on the scrawny guy’s face as he flexes and stares adoringly at himself in the mirror is pretty funny, but the image also reminded me that, for many girls (once including teenaged-me),… Continue reading Ladies, Let’s Be More Like Men (In How We View Our Bodies)
The virtues are easy to write about because they’re mostly applicable across the spectrum of the world’s religions, or even if you’re none at all. After all, not only is it a truism that all religions have a common ethical core, it’s also a very essential fact that allows us to live peacefully side by… Continue reading The Unglamorous Virtues
Post-Postmodern Pish 