Update: September 2025
I don’t really like to talk about myself. I especially don’t like to write about myself. These statements seem to be in conflict with, or at the very least in tension with, the medium in which they are contained (that is to say: a personal blog on a personal website). But I will power through this, as it seems fitting and proper that I periodically provide updates about my life and work, and it seems best to do this somewhere other than Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, places that feel like the middle third of a Dante poem at their best and like, well, the first third of a Dante poem at their worst.
To that end, I’ve started my PhD in Sociology at Columbia University. As such, Danielle and I (and our cats, Olaf and Miso) have moved to an apartment in Queens. We are currently in the seemingly never-ending process of moving in. With any luck, that will resolve itself by the end of September. Our expat years have (at least temporarily) come to an end, but do be on the lookout for us starting sentences with “When we were abroad…”
You may have noticed that this announcement is a bit terse. In more normal times, I would probably be discussing how excited I am to join an academic community that has hosted the likes of Howard Zinn, Jane Jacobs, Meadow Soprano, and Ursula K. Le Guin. I would probably be explaining that I hope to explore how scientific theories of pain have been used to justify and contest capital punishment in the USA. And I probably wouldn’t be mentioning government funding at all. But, as you likely know, these are not normal times. Universities have been extorted for hundreds of millions of dollars and significant policy changes in order to have their research funding restored. Promising research that saved countless lives during COVID has been cut completely. National Science Foundation funding for graduate student fellowships has been slashed. Millions of dollars’ worth of government grants have been reviewed or even canceled based on their use of words such as “discrimination,” “trans,” or “women.” Students have been detained by ICE for protesting on campus. Collectively, this amounts to an attack on academic freedom and a willful and wanton destruction of the greatest knowledge creation system ever known. In short, this administration is strangling the goose that lays the golden eggs.
If any of the above upsets you, and I hope that it does, I’d ask that you please call your senators and representative and tell them about it. I know that much of this may seem like small potatoes or champagne problems given everything else happening right now, but I do think this is far more important than it appears at first glance. Authoritarian governments always attack universities, so defending them is a form of self-defense.
In the future, I hope to provide updates here that are brighter and more interesting. At the very least, I hope they will be productively dour. If you’re interested and would like to follow along, feel free to sign up below with your email so any new posts will be delivered to your inbox.