With all the booknerds, I'll be trying the bout of books for the second time. This challenge runs for this week.
Here's the explanation from the official gang at Bout of Books
So...
It's been day one and as usual I was reading.
Today, my reading included:
Reading for research: George Hawley, Right Wing Critics of American Conservatism, which is an academic analysis of various trends on the far-right by a scholar who is a mainstream conservative. This makes it interesting as he takes divisions on the right much more seriously than most left writers do.
Reading for teaching: it's an old classic, Adler and Van Doren, How to Read a Book. I started assigning this to my introductory grad school theory class after a student told me it was helpful to her as she worked on interpreting theoretical works on her own for the first time.
and for the Book Riot Read Harder challenge of 2018, my chosen "book of true crime" - Judgment Ridge: The True Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders. I had picked this book up a couple of years ago in a used bookstore. I don't know why, but I remembered those murders even though I didn't follow what happened later. I never knew anything about why they happened or who it was that actually did them, certainly not the trial. Reading the book is like entering the bad, dark reality that would be on the other side of the image of Stars Hollow on the Gilmore Girls. So far, it is not what the book represents, but it is a perfect study of how the presumption of innocence is a privilege specific to white middle-class people. Surely, these "normal boys" from "good families" in a small town could not be cold-blooded killers! Note: by saying this, I do not mean that the presumption of innocence is a bad thing, but that whiteness itself is so associated with innocence in our culture that it remains very difficult for people to associate white people with criminal activity, and the suggestion seems to be that there must be an extraordinary explanation for such crimes, in contrast to crimes committed by non-white people.
Here's the explanation from the official gang at Bout of Books
The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 8th and runs through Sunday, January 14th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 21 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog.What I like about these web-based reading challenges is that they get you into a kind of bookish frenzy with other readers to talk about the books you like, to answer some questions about your reading habits, and of course, to write about what you're reading on social media.
So...
It's been day one and as usual I was reading.
Today, my reading included:
Reading for research: George Hawley, Right Wing Critics of American Conservatism, which is an academic analysis of various trends on the far-right by a scholar who is a mainstream conservative. This makes it interesting as he takes divisions on the right much more seriously than most left writers do.
Reading for teaching: it's an old classic, Adler and Van Doren, How to Read a Book. I started assigning this to my introductory grad school theory class after a student told me it was helpful to her as she worked on interpreting theoretical works on her own for the first time.
and for the Book Riot Read Harder challenge of 2018, my chosen "book of true crime" - Judgment Ridge: The True Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders. I had picked this book up a couple of years ago in a used bookstore. I don't know why, but I remembered those murders even though I didn't follow what happened later. I never knew anything about why they happened or who it was that actually did them, certainly not the trial. Reading the book is like entering the bad, dark reality that would be on the other side of the image of Stars Hollow on the Gilmore Girls. So far, it is not what the book represents, but it is a perfect study of how the presumption of innocence is a privilege specific to white middle-class people. Surely, these "normal boys" from "good families" in a small town could not be cold-blooded killers! Note: by saying this, I do not mean that the presumption of innocence is a bad thing, but that whiteness itself is so associated with innocence in our culture that it remains very difficult for people to associate white people with criminal activity, and the suggestion seems to be that there must be an extraordinary explanation for such crimes, in contrast to crimes committed by non-white people.
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