Reading: I recently finished the one masterful novel unfit for reading during a pandemic: José Saramago’s Blindness. I say “unfit” because it follows a group of unnamed people through an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness that has afflicted the world. I had been saving the novel for a while and couldn’t put off reading it any longer. As it would be, I finished the last page on the last day of 2020. Perhaps that will be in some way symbolic.

Writing: We are in the home stretch of an article that theorizes the spaces in which teachers and teacher activists self organize. I came in a bit late to this article with my writing partners, but I’m happy that Carol Levine’s ideas on forms that I brought with have come to lead the way conceptually. Levine’s book made quite a splash when it came out in 2015, and the praise is all deserved. You can find a few reviews and commentaries of it on my pinboard here

Teaching: This semester I’m teaching a course on reading and teaching young adult literature through anti-racist and anti-oppressive approaches. We start this week with the very excellent Letting Go of Literary Whiteness by Carlin Borsheim-Black and Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides. You can check out the course description and learning objectives on this post if you like.

Listening: DOOM. Like so many others, I’m revisiting his catalog on account of his sudden passing.

Viewing: I’m a late watcher by habit. So in typical fashion, I finally watched The Mandalorian. Both seasons, back to back, all the way through. Serious binge. Big pop on the final scene.