Radio blackbird has been travelling, and I’ve been trying to capture some impressions over the past few days. On Monday I went to the National Portrait Gallery to meet an old friend and took the longer route via the early (white) American history section, and here is a quick ink drawing. The portraits are based […]
Earlier this year I heard Prof. Yuhua Wang in a podcast talk about his memories as a young primary school student of 1989. He was sent home in late May, and on his way back saw tanks rolling through the streets. I don’t know if those were the Type 59 tanks that are in the
Welcome to the new subscribers for the email alerts, and apologies there have been so few (if any) updates. This is 15 min sketch of the current situation here at the Radio Blackbird headquarters: it’s very busy with other things!
One of the core philosophies in my teaching was to move away from single-use or disposable assignments, and move to something more durable. Let’s face it: students create too many essays that disappear into a digital drawer at the end of the semester, never to be seen again. Their labour gets a grade, but it
Don’t ask the expert! Read More »
Even in my department I occasionally have had to explain that “No, me teaching the Shang dynasty is not playing on home terrain. That’s like a historian of nineteenth century Europe teaching about emperor Augustus and the Roman empire, mkay?” Feel free to replace that with a similar 1800-2000 year interval of your choice. Chinese
Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping… Read More »
In last Friday’s post, you may have noticed a little hippo in the right bottom corner, observing carefully how Squirrel compares the PRC/East Asia to the size of the US. Who’s that little fella? That’s William, the Muhlenberg College unofficial History Department mascot, lovingly borrowed from the Met Museum’s original plush version of the little
How do you explain to your colleagues that your courses cover an area larger than the US (the main frame of reference), and a couple thousand years more than they usually do, even if they’re historians? My tenure committee itself included people from political science, chemistry, mathematics, film studies/English and more. My first concern was
Look at the size of that thing! Read More »
The narrative or personal statement for a tenure file is not my favourite genre to write, for a lot of reasons. My coach and I decided I needed to find a way to inject some joy and larger purpose into the entire exercise since I do not respond well to pointless things –and the statement
Sometimes I just get an image in my head and I need to get it out. Sometimes I think it’s just me, but then a bit later I find something online or in the news and I know I’m not alone. This was one of those images that would not let go and then a
Plushies on the move Read More »
What has this little squirrel spied with its beady little eye? A new website? A new project? Subscribe to the RSS feed or with your email address and follow along for more adventures in drawings, doodles, and illustrations!
