Several of these blog entries are reflections of various aspects of the holocaust-studies tour. These essays are designed to provide the reader with specific information about various memorials and locations as well as a personal reflection of meaning associated with a location or feature of a memorial. Some blog entries will not be animated by the holocaust-studies tour.
Additionally, I recently completed a writing project overhauling a behavior and social sciences statistics textbook. Some selected sidebar essays that may be of interest to a more general audience have been extracted and placed in this section of the website.
Germany/Poland ’23, Day 2
Whole Lotta Walkin’ and Talkin’ Goin’ On Our first full day as a team in Berlin brought with it renewed strength, renewed hope for the return of some lost luggage, and over 20,000 steps of exploration. Among the places visited include Checkpoint Charlie, The Topography of Terror Museum, Potsdamer Platz, the Aktion T-4 Memorial, Hitler’s Bunker, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Soviet War Memorial, and the Reichstag. In addition to taking in these sights, wonderful discussions are being had about the nature of memorials, the absorbing power of a desired narrative, the concept of self-deception, the
Germany/Poland ’23, Day 1
Arrivals and First Things It took most of the day, but we got everyone here safe and sound (minus one piece of luggage, sadly). Despite jet-lag, dispersed landing times, and rail construction complicating our movements, we were able to find about 4 hours in the evening to do some exploring downtown. Among other sites, we checked out Alexanderplatz, Rosenstrasse Protest Memorial, Hackescher Markt, Museum Island, Humboldt University, Bebelplatz, and the Brandenburg Gate. Below are some pics. Everyone is exhausted and needing rest. Tomorrow we will further explore by local rail and foot the sites of Berlin.
Germany/Poland ’23, Day minus 1
(The students arrive tomorrow.) Day minus 1 allowed me to gain virtually all of the rail tickets we need (took nearly 2 hours, whew!), find our hotel for this year (conveniently located near Alexanderplatz), and do a little exploring on my own. What I set out to find was the Berlin Wall Park and Memorial which is located in the north-central part of the city. This particular venue features several memorials, large stretches of the outer wall peppered across the park’s western edge (a bit of the inner wall is there as well), and many markings on the ground where
Book Review: Of Popes and Unicorns
By David Hutchings & James Ungureanu; Oxford University Press, 2022 (263 pages) Accessibility rating 4 (out of 5) Recommendation rating 5 (out of 5) Of Popes and Unicorns, a 2022 offering written by science educator David Hutchings and Humanities Professor James Ungureanu, takes the reader on a brief yet impressively comprehensive tour of the history of the so-called “conflict thesis,” the widely accepted claim that there exists a long-standing and fundamental antagonism between religious thought, notably Christian thought, and the goals and efforts of modern science. In the book, the authors tackle two issues. The first is a careful exploration
KET covers “Don’t Forget Us”
On January 27th, International Holocaust Memorial Day, Kentucky Educational Television (KET) aired a story on the documentary that Asbury University Journalism Professor, Rich Manieri, and his students wrote, shot, and produced. I was grateful to be a part of both the tour that inspired the documentary as well as this KET news story. Here is a link to the story. [The piece on the Asbury documentary starts at the 19:15 mark.] And for more information about the documentary, immediately below is the trailer, and to the right (or just below the first video) is the documentary itself (after a three
Interview with John Lennox, Part 3 – Spiritual Journey
In September of 2022, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College, Dr. John Lennox, sat down to talk with me about his spiritual journey. The exchange lasts about 20 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ3Se7iyIcE.