On Facebook, a friend recently asked me how the recent controversy over the Kansas Board of Regents’ new social media policy differs from A&E’s suspending of Phil Robertson from the Duck Dynasty reality TV show. I see why she asks: The Kansas Board of Regents has rescinded faculty and staff’s right to free speech, just
As faculty grade their last student papers and exams before leaving town for the Christmas holidays, the Kansas Board of Regents quietly – and unanimously – voted to revoke their academic freedom and basic right to freedom of speech. As the Lawrence Journal-World reports this evening, “The Kansas Board of Regents on Wednesday approved a policy that would
The problem with a blurb from Neil Gaiman on a cover is that, invoking Gaiman, it inevitably diminishes the book by comparison. This is not the book’s fault. Gaiman is one of our most gifted contemporary writers. Catherynne M. Valente may not be, but I wouldn’t even be thinking about the comparison if Gaiman’s endorsement
What would Kansas be like without Langston Hughes, William S. Burroughs, or The Wizard of Oz? Â What would Kansas be like without art? Â That’s what the blog Imagine Kansas Without Art is considering, in light of Governor Brownback’s order to eliminate the Kansas Arts Commission (which, if approved by the state legislature, will go into
As we celebrate the birthdays of Mozart (255th) and Lewis Carroll (179th) amidst threatened cuts to arts funding, we might re-read Yuko Takao’s A Winter Concert (1995; English translation, 1997).  Rendered in thin dark lines on a white background, mice walk to a concert. As the pianist begins to play, colored pointillist shapes rise from