Rest, Read, Resist

The last weeks have been a whirlwind. After turning in my manuscript, I traveled to Illinois, then to Indiana and Rhode Island, and then I set off for Scotland, and then I returned via DC for a weekend of meetings. I’m finally back home, just in time to begin teaching again.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the classroom, and I know it will be good to be back. (I’m teaching a two-hour course that only meets the second half of the semester, which enabled me to focus on finishing the book.) It’s a course in Calvin’s Honors program, and given the choice to teach whatever I wanted, I threw a course together organized around all of the things I most wanted to read or re-read right now. I called the class “Readings for Resistance.” It’s not about political resistance exactly, but the readings are drawn from the history of twentieth-century authoritarianism and address things like how to resist the erosion of truth and the forces of dehumanization that are always a part of authoritarian regimes.

I’ll write occasionally about some of the readings here, so later this week I’ll post a reading list in case you’d like to read along.

I had hoped to give an update from Scotland, but unfortunately I had a hard time connecting to Substack there. I’ll share a few pictures here, though. It was a perfect trip, all around.

Things started off well, with an on-time arrival into Newark. I confess I got a little choked up seeing the statue of liberty (on the far right in the distance).

I four-hour layover in Newark might not sound ideal, but I had this beautiful document in my inbox to admire:

This is honestly my favorite stage of publishing. Holding the book in my hands is fine, but there’s nothing quite like seeing the words that have lived in my brain and then in Word documents for years suddenly take on the appearance of a proper book. (And Liveright’s books are always stunning.)

Arriving in St Andrews, I went for a stroll along the coastal path with a friend I’d met the last time I was out. It was easily one of the highlights of the trip:

My official duties there involved meeting with female students in the Divinity School and speaking on Live Laugh Love. I also met up with several faculty members, and I ate. A lot. I ate Scottish game pies and cullen skink (not as scary as it sounds) and I also managed to grab a full Scottish breakfast.

I spent my last night in Dundee, where it was beautiful and windy. By windy, I mean there were white caps on a reflecting pool.

Due to the jetstream, we took a northern flight route back and had stunning views of Iceland and Greenland. Somehow I managed to snag an exit row to myself both there and back on otherwise full flights.

I landed at Dulles in DC just minutes before the full ground stop shut down all flights in and out of the entire DC region, for hours. I arrived just in time for the opening dinner for PRRI’s Senior Democracy Fellows. We put in a solid weekend of work, but there are really no other people I’d rather be doing the work with.

I arrived home this afternoon to a frantically happy dog. I’ll try to sleep past 3am tonight, and then wake up to copy edits, which should be in my inbox tomorrow morning.

Now that I’m back at home, I’ll be picking up regular routines once more—including having more time to write about daily events here.

All of which is to say, more soon…