From Pretoria to Peoria
There’s a neologism that I’d propose for the often-radical international activism that comes from non-coastal college towns that are too often easily ignored – midwestern cosmopolitanism.
Kindness is Its Own Memory
On terrible pantyhose, bad sports writing, and the eternal kindness of the late great Franco Harris.
Remember Me Different
Mrs. M would not be given the courtesy of a new lease, as the building had changed management. Cachet G! was closing. Cold and calculated gentrification.
Under Kaufmann’s Clock
On Families, Department Stores, and America
Land-Grant or Land Grab Universities?
Land-grant institutions are deeply ingrained into our everyday geographies, but as an Indigenous scholar, these places have a complicated legacy.
Fathers, Sons, and Notre Dame
His life span and mine, thus far, cover 133 years – 1889 to 2022 – and we, my father and I, shared the planet for only 29 of those years before his death.
Ohio in Toni Morrison’s Words
As much as Ohioans like me and others want to claim Morrison, her words belong to the world.
Sharpsburg, PA – Past, Present, Future
The past, present, and future coexist simultaneously in Sharpsburg, and for the moment, one hasn’t pushed the other out.
What Has Seeped into the Animals, the Plants, the Soil?
Toxins are not constrained by fences, boundary lines, or ownership deeds. Toxins don't care whether you actually live here or [...]
Figments of a Pittsburgh Imagination
Andy Warhol meets the Breatharians.
Pandemic Diaries, Year Three
Dispatch from Flint, Michigan: when COVID-19 hits home.
Uncovering America’s First Oil Landscape
In Pennsylvania’s Oil Creek Valley, the messy legacy of the country’s first petroleum boom.