I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. ~William Penn~
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently invited me to contribute a short essay on the challenge of ethnographic work with a hate group. I am thankful for editor Alex Kafka's patience with me as we worked through several ideas. You can read it digitally here or in the February 3 print edition of the newspaper. Above, a member of... Continue Reading →
I took my oldest, 12, with me to a post-card writing event this week. Our host, an artist, graciously supplied us with handmade postcards, some with blank fronts so we could design our own images and some with a beautiful beehive pattern (as we live in the Beehive State) and the symbol of the Women's... Continue Reading →
Above, we read How I Learned Geography. How are you talking to your kids about refugees? My youngest and I have been reading Uri Shulevitz's How I Learned Geography, which was awarded a Caldecott Honor in 2009. The book tells the story of Shulevitz's move from Poland to Kazakhstan as the Jewish purge began. He lives among... Continue Reading →
No, seriously. He said so in 2003, when Tiffany was just 13. On Howard Stern's radio show. For everyone in America, including his teenage daughter, the one he wished were dead, to hear. What are the words every kid needs to hear from their parents? That they are loved and wanted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8z97F48Ef4 Above, a public... Continue Reading →
Okay, so SOME people (my spouse) have been a little worried that I've so much enjoyed watching Richard Spencer get punched in the face. Over and over again. Set to music. Especially to Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA." Over and over again. They're worried because I'm not a person who supports violence. And that... Continue Reading →
Despite warnings about Donald Trump’s unfitness for the presidency by prominent religious leaders like the actual Pope as well as Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, conservative white Christians rallied around the Republican candidate at a stunning rate. His win among white evangelicals was 8 points greater than Romney’s was over Obama, who,... Continue Reading →
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently ran an article focusing on Lawrence, Kansas, where the University of Kansas (where I earned my PhD in American Studies) is located. Calling the town a "blue bubble in a red state," it presented the relative liberalism of the town as a barrier between the university and the people of... Continue Reading →
Weber State University's Sociology & Anthropology Brown Bag Series presents Dr. Rebecca Barrett-Fox, Arkansas State University "The Hottest Part of Hell: Growing Up, Leaving, and Staying in Westboro Baptist Church" Please Join Us on Thursday, January 26, 1:30 PM, SS103 What is life like inside a congregation that thinks the rest of the world is so evil... Continue Reading →
What a treat to see God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church American Nationalism, and the Religious Right reviewed in The Journal of Church and State, a favorite journal of mine. (Check out this month's article on covenant marriage and the Catholic church by Thomas More Garrett to see why.) The full review is available for free online, even if you don't... Continue Reading →
Rebecca Barrett-Fox 