by Toni McNaron | Apr 11, 2018 | Toni's Blog
When I began teaching at the University of Minnesota, I was in my late 20s and my students were often in their early 20s or late teens. As one way of establishing myself as their “professor,” I set up strict deadlines for handing in papers. Of course a...
by Toni McNaron | Jul 29, 2017 | Toni's Blog
Anyone who’s read Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield remembers the oleaginous character Uriah Heep. Described by Dickens as unusually tall and wraithlike, Heep ingratiates himself into David’s world, wringing his hands in false supplication. ...
by Toni McNaron | Dec 27, 2016 | Toni's Blog
In the 1970’s, the university where I was teaching hosted a program for several summers that was designed to bring bright black students who would be seniors sand who were interested in graduate study to our campus. They would conduct research with faculty...
by Toni McNaron | Sep 20, 2016 | Toni's Blog
In her writings about Adolph Eichmann, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt spoke about the “banality of evil.” This was a new concept to me when first I read her work; I thought of people like Eichmann as the most extreme examples of white...
by Toni McNaron | Aug 22, 2016 | Toni's Blog
In 1984, Audre Lorde, black lesbian feminist writer, published an essay entitled “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Though was speaking about ways feminist women might find to begin to “dismantle” the...
by Toni McNaron | Jun 2, 2016 | Toni's Blog
He died, between breakfast and dinner on New Year’s Day, 1954. I was almost 17, a senior in high school, so we never had a conversation as two adults. In the 1980’s a favorite form of therapy for working with dead people was called Gestalt. In it, the...
