Dustin Kidd

This is an old teaching philosophy from several years ago. I've used the mantra "don't be an asshole" a few times lately, when I felt particularly annoyed by certain behaviors from my students. I thought I'd dig this back up. -------------------------------------- Writing this statement was inspired by a conversation I had recently with an undergraduate who was preparing for a career in cooking instruction. “What advice do you have for an aspiring teacher?” he asked me. Given our very different fields, it was clearly important to think beyond the strictly sociological (“always teach theory and methods as one”), and even beyond the arts & sciences (“bravely embrace seemingly new traditions”). What could I tell this young person about teaching that would apply as well to him—a chef who teaches others how to cook—as it does to myself as a teacher of sociology? “Do yoga,” I told him. We were sitting outside of our classroom, before an 8:40am c

I'm working on a new book project. The research is question is both very long, and pretty simple: How do race, class, gender, disability status, and sexuality impact the content, production, and audience of film, television, music, print media, and the internet? The question is answered using a combination of secondary and primary data, but I also highlight the many ways the question remains unanswered and suggest ways that we could improve our sociological study of popular culture. If you have favorite studies that are relevant, send them my way!

1. Use the ~ symbol in front of a word to let google include similar words in the search. ~cheap will also look for affordable, budget, etc. 2. Use the - to exclude a word from the search. fun music -kei$ha will exclude Kei$ha from the findings. 3. Use an elipsis (...) to indicate a range. $100...$300 will yield a price range for a given item. 4. Use 'site:' to search a particular website. 'Glee site:nytimes.com' will yield all articles on Glee (or glee) from the Times. 5. Use 'filetype:' to find a particular kind of document. I often want to save myself some work for class by using other people's pdfs of book chapters. So I can type in: 'McChesney US Media filetype:pdf' to find someone else's scan. 6. Use 'define' before a term to let Google generate a definition for you, rather than having to click through various dictionary sites. 7. Enter tracking numbers for FedEx, USPS, and UPS and other delivery services directly into Google

Today begins the Cardboard to Courage Campaign at Spiral Q . Please visit the website and donate $10-$100 to support this fantastic community. Spiral Q's mission: Spiral Q builds strong and equitable communities characterized by joy, creativity, can-do attitudes, and the courage to act on their convictions. To be very clear, Spiral Q doesn't make puppets or any other kind of art object. Spiral Q builds communities first and foremost. Art happens along the way, but it never takes the form of a static object. Art is a living breathing process and at Spiral Q building art and building community are the same process. Spiral Q takes for granted the fact that all humans are naturally creative expressive beings and we all long to tell our stories--be they personal memoirs, creative fictions, lived poems, or community documentaries. I love that joy is at the heart of Spiral Q's mission, right there in the middle of the sentence. Every social movement, every project for change

As the Oprah Winfrey show fades to black, I thought I'd share this poem I wrote about a year after college when I was living in London (1997). ------------------------ Me and Oprah Winfrey Ever since Princess Diana and Mother Theresa passed from hope into glory it's been just me and Oprah Winfrey out here saving the world. Oprah said to me, "Let's fight for the rights of impoverished children." And we did. Oprah said, "Let's encourage the spread of volunteerism." And we did. Oprah said, "Let's celebrate wonderful people the world over." And, of course, we did. When I turned in the sand to see the footprints behind, I noticed that when Jesus wasn't carrying me, Oprah was. Today, I am grateful for these five: 1) I am grateful for the opportunity to love God. 2) I am grateful for the privilege of loving others. 3) I am grateful for the joy of loving myself. 4) I am grateful for the responsibility of loving the earth. 5) I am grateful f

As a newly tenured faculty member, I'm reflecting on what helped me the most in crossing this difficult bridge. Here's my top five. 1. Research: Do one big thing at a time. It's easy to feel like you need to achieve a million things: as many articles as possible, a book, book reviews, media interviews, conferences, edited volumes, research networks in your area. That can be a formula for actually accomplishing nothing. So pick one thing at a time to focus on. I struggled a lot with this, but at a key moment I put an article to the side and just focused on my book. So I suggest picking the most important thing to start with and going after that. If you're interest in writing a book, but struggling to get started, then write one article that can become a book chapter, and then write the book. If you're ready to go straight to the book, go for it. If you're really an article writer, write one at a time. A useful resource for me in the writing process has b

Andres Serrano's famous photograph Piss Christ was destroyed last weekend in Avignon. Here is the Washington Post's coverage of the vandalism of this art work by angered French Catholics. I thought I'd take this occasion to remind us of the history of this photograph and the controversy it faced. This is a selection from my book Legislating Creativity: Piss Christ on the Senate Floor The late 1980s was a time of controversy. In film, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ had incited outrage from many Christians by depicting Jesus in a sexual relationship. A number of scandals plagued the music world, perhaps bolstering sales along the way. Madonna released the video for her song “Like a Prayer” in April of 1989, just as Pepsi released a commercial featuring the song and its singer. But the video, showing Madonna bearing signs of the stigmata, kissing a Black Christ figure, and dancing in lingerie in a church, upset many Christian organizations

I love hearing good news from former students, and I encourage you to write to a professor whose teaching or mentorship you appreciated and let them know how you're doing. Today, I got this nugget from a former student on his way to graduate school at Princeton: "I owe you thanks not only for writing me a letter of recommendation, but also for the guidance and structure your class provided. You helped me write a research paper that was far more sophisticated than anything I could have written on my own. I used that paper as my writing sample when applying, and several admissions committees indicated that it was a key reason why I received an offer." I love it!

The ASA Bachelor's and Beyond study and blogposts are a great way to see what's happening to soc grads! Useful for curriculum planning and job placement/counseling. http://asaresearch.wordpress.com/category/bachelors-and-beyond-survey/

http://dustinkidd.blogspot.com/ Last week's episode of Parks and Recreation, titled April and Andy's Fancy Party , had a nice illustration of Patricia Hill Collins's concept of controllingimages. Co ntrolling images are media images that function, whether by design or not, to remind marginalized groups of their position in the power structure and to justify that position to a wider audience, especially to those who are privileged by their position within that structure. Although stereotypes usually function as controlling images, many controlling images are not so widespread that they can be called stereotypes, and many actually seem positive at first glance. As a case in point, consider the character of Donna from Parks and Recreation. Donna is played by the Black female comedian Retta Sirleaf. In last week's episode, Donna is at a singles event when she is found by Ann Perkins. Ann is played by the biracial actress Rashida Jones, daughter of Quincey Jones

http://dustinkidd.blogspot.com/ These are lecture slides for a talk I'm giving at Haverford next week. The visual slides reference material from my book. I post this here as an example of what a Prezi show can look like. However, I notice that it doesn't work quite as seamlessly when it's embedded as it does right from the Prezi website. The Social Power of Art: A Virtual Tour on Prezi