About this Blog

In a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon by Bill Watterson, Calvin, a six-year-old boy, says to Hobbes, a tiger and his best friend, “I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity.  With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog. Want to see my book report?”

Hobbes reads the title of the book report, “The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes.”

In the final panel, Calvin boasts, “Academia, here I come!”

Image from http://wac.osu.edu/tutorials/bestpractices/calvin-writing.htm. 

…Unfortunately, the impression that most people get of critical theory is similar to Calvin’s. They are confronted with an obscure set of jargon, a gamut of unusual and sometimes even unbelievable ideas, and they dismiss theory as being completely useless–merely a way for the author to get a dissertation published or make tenure and sound smart at the same time.

The goal of this blog is to be the opposite of Calvin’s book report. Instead, my goal is make theory understandable (at least to some extent) and show that it isn’t just a set of ideas that can only be relevant in academia but instead is vital and applicable to the everyday world all around us.

Oh, yeah, and I’ll probably also include some autobiographical, memoir-ish type content as well, since everyday life tends to provide writing fodder. I’ll try not to indulge in too much navel-gazing, however, and focus on wider perspectives and issues than my own humdrum life.