Happy Friday, ProfHackers! It’s been a topsy-turvy week for many of us, especially George Williams and Ryan Cordell, who have traveled to Washington D. C. to participate in a now-cancelled NEH Digital Humanities Project Directors Meeting. Kudos to the University of Maryland and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities for hosting an unconference so that participants can still gather and share their work. But George, Ryan, and our friends at the NEH aren’t the only academics who have been affected by the shutdown. Inside Higher Ed explains how it is affecting the ability to do research at many institutions and on many levels: “Locked Out of the Library.” USA Today also ran an article titled “5 Ways the Shutdown Has Affected College Students.”
Avid Stephen King fans already know that King’s latest novel, Dr. Sleep, dropped on September 24. This novel revisits Danny Torrance, now an adult, from iconic King novel The Shining. It’s no secret that King himself wasn’t fond of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation. This article from Salon explains why. Also in case you may have missed it, Margaret Atwood reviewed the new novel in the New York Times.
Speaking of reading and The New York Times, a post on the Well blog suggests that we might all do better to read a bit more literary fiction because it “often leaves more to the imagination, encouraging readers to make inferences about characters and be sensitive to emotional nuance and complexity.” According to the title, Chekhov is especially recommended.
More recommended reading, that could lead to, well, more reading, is this piece from The Atlantic titled “A Brief Tour of the Digital Delights of the Folger Shakespeare Library,” which highlights some very interesting digital projects that ProfHacker friend Sarah Werner (better known to Twitter users as @wykenhimself) and her colleagues have begun at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
A provocative article from the New York Times Magazine asks, “Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science” and makes an interesting case for single-gender education.
Finally, if you haven’t gotten your fill this week of the federal government, you might consider this article from CNN that asks, “Constitution and the debt: Can the president go it alone?”
In an attempt to end on a happier note, we will leave you with this recent performance from Jimmy Fallon and friends:
[Creative Commons licensed image by Flickr user Biscarotte]