Recommended Reading #198: Responding to Discord, Pt. IV

      “This Is Not A Pity Party” by Dr. Eric Anthony Grollman (Non-Sex-Related, Sociology, Academia, Gender and Racial Disparities) 10/25/13

Though I possess both an undergraduate and a graduate degree, I don’t feel I know a lot about the overall environment of professional academia. I perceive this as a straightforward elucidation of things in a field I’ve tended to rarely consider, and I find it interesting and can appreciate the presentation of a viewpoint one experiences as marginalized in one’s professional field, especially one with as much public exposure as academia.

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      “The Spectrum: On being Palestinian in a pro-Israel institution” by Serene Darwish (Non-Sex-Related, Politics, International Policy, Academia, Sociology) 4/18/14

I want to acknowledge up front that context, history, and circumstances in Israeli/Palestinian interactions are not something about which I feel particularly informed. I appreciated reading this piece because it offers insight into an individual’s experience in a way I found interesting, cogent, and articulate. Recommending this is not meant to indicate a position on an issue about which, again, I don’t feel informed enough to strongly hold a position currently. It is, rather, a read I recommend simply for the reasons I just listed for appreciating it.

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      “The Minimum Wage Worker Strikes Back” by Sarah Kendzior (Non-Sex-Related, Economics, Sociology, U.S. Public Policy) 4/14/14

This is a fairly long read. But I see it as an important one and recommend it for those who feel they have the time. To me, as a policy and a paradigm under which we operate, not having a living wage as a simple fundamental baseline if we are going to support a capitalistic societal structure is inexcusable. Far beyond discussions about economic implications and strategies under the current mode operandi, the perspective in me is that we need a paradigm shift. Almost by definition, that is not the kind of thing we can foresee or form in the same state of consciousness with which we formed the current paradigm, so I continue to wish us all the best in awakening so more life-affirming systems organically emerge and thrive.

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Recommended Reading posted every Wednesday