Over the past two years, I’ve been embarrassed to tell people where I live. Continue reading
A word about onions
I love onions, but I also hate them because people cook them badly. Continue reading
How to apply for grad school
Graduate school is a tightly-kept gate, and frankly it shouldn’t be that way. I’ve gathered some wisdom about how to succeed in making it past the gatekeepers from my own experiences as well as those of my friends in various fields. Continue reading
Working between history, archaeology, and art history: or, why I need a portable x-ray fluorescence scanner
My research year is going to start out pretty typically for a history PhD – a few months in an archive looking at some old manuscripts. And then things are going to get really weird when I bring an x-ray gun to Italy so I can take readings on things made of copper. Continue reading
Historians have too many learning objectives and it’s because we don’t know pedagogy – or even what we are
Recently, my medievalist cohort and I got together for a few sessions with the Center for Teaching and Learning to talk about how to write a syllabus, and all my frustrations about TAing came crashing down on me at once. Continue reading
Censoring Schiele and Revealing the Male Gaze
100 Years On, What Does It Say That We’re Still Censoring Egon Schiele’s Nudes?
This brief article on a recent international ad campaign highlights exactly what’s wrong with the female body in public spaces – that we just can’t distinguish between nudity that is erotic and nudity that is irrelevant to sex. Continue reading
Janet’s Greek Chicken Pita
Homemade gyros, a la my mother-in-law. Continue reading
Segregated schooling in NYC – How do we make amends?
I benefitted from NYC’s practice of school segregation, and I have to come to terms with that. Continue reading
What you need for pregnancy and what you don’t – goods and state of mind
Pregnancy, like any major life event, has a steep learning curve. You can’t really prepare, because you don’t know how things are going to be for you, but at the same time, you can learn about the range of things you can expect and know what resources are available once you run into trouble.
Chicken Enchilada Soup

Cheese and yogurt waiting to be stirred.
Enchiladas are a labor of love, so I keep coming up with lazy methods for getting the same flavors and textures.