Love and desire: They are very much at stake in the question “Should I become a woman and risk causing pain to my wife and children?” posed to Chuck Klosterman, who writes The Ethicist column for The New York Times. The Massachusetts woman who posed the question is struggling with the responsibilities of familial love […]
Eva Hayward
Bio: Eva Hayward is an INDY Week freelance columnist and a postdoctoral associate in the Women's Studies Department at Duke.Twitter: http://twitter.com/hayeva
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The sexual and ethical ambiguity of the beloved bivalve
Late December always makes me hungry for the briny bodies of oysters. But there’s a snag: I’m vegan. Veganism carries many unwarranted associations: extremism, intractability and fussiness. Unwarranted, I say, because these oversimplify the nuances of veganism. For some, the diet is an ethical, animal-rights or environmental stance. For others, being vegan is a choice […]
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Getting frank about our Frankenweather
Do the Math Environmentalist Bill McKibben will speak in Durham on Monday, Nov. 19, about the crisis of climate change. The event will be held in Page Auditorium at Duke University at 7 p.m. Tickets are $5 and are available at act.350.org’s website. Having hurled whole bays of seawater onto drenched shores, Sandy’s surges are […]
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Minding—and mining—the moon
From his front porch, my neighbor excitedly tells me that the crescent moon”as perfect a crescent as you’ll ever see”will be close to Venus at dawn. The moon is a talking point across differences: porches, neighborhoods, sometimes even politics. Why does the moon bind us so? A legacy of the space race, with the Soviet […]
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The subtle process of transformation
Summer has begun its ebb. Do you feel it? Not quite perceptible, the start of autumn is like smelling a change in temperature. It’s still hot and humid, yet we register a difference at the overlapping edge of our senses. Perhaps change usually has this character because it resides just beyond the human scale of […]
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The Crochet Coral Reef project heightens our sense of responsibility to the oceans
Billions of years ago, Venus’ atmosphere was much like Earth’s, but a runaway greenhouse effect boiled her oceans dry, leaving the planet’s surface waterless and its sky hot and thick with clouds of sulfuric acid. Sounds a little like July. Although Venus is closer to the sun than Earth, this summer has felt dispiritingly Venusian: […]
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What Maurice Sendak taught us about facing our fears
A landscape of collapsed barns, pastures overgrown with purple-tipped burdock and farm equipment rusted solid is an ideal setting to reflect on the passing of Maurice Sendak, author and artist, who most famously wrote Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963. His death did not entirely surprise me. In 2011, Sendak gave an interview […]
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Facebook and Amendment 1
With the passing of Amendment 1, my Facebook feed has been flooded with reactions. Voter intimidation: One family held close as they cast their ballot while protestors yelled, “homosexual marriage endangers children!” Fear about losing insurance: An unmarried, straight couple is unsure how they will pay their medical bills. Even a glance at Facebook tells […]
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How beauty pageants view transwomen
Miss Universe: a laudable honorific. Mistress of not just our lowly solar system but intergalactically so, outranking even Miss Whirlpool Galaxy. Reigning over the totality of matter and energy, Miss Universe reaches across the darkness to gather stars for her astronomical tiara. Many of us have heard the story of Jenna Talackova’s disqualification from Miss […]
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Schooled by mackerels: Rachel Carson’s curiosity
It’s unseasonably warm: Tulips and daffodils have already gone, temperature records have been broken, and every single thing is blanketed in chartreuse, gritty pollen. Everywhere I go people are talking about the heat wave. We’ve delightfully pulled out summer clothes and readied our grills for asparagus. But there is also nervousness in our tone, a […]