By Erika Grumet One Sunday in June, I was folding laundry with my mother. The television was on, tuned into evening news, which was reporting on “gay pride festivities” in New York City. I was a teenager, and as teenagers often do, I held opinions about many things that conflicted with my parents. IContinue reading “Erika’s Big Think #2, Part 2: Concluding Reflections on Stonewall”
Category Archives: Big Think
Andrew’s Big Think #2, Part 2: “I am not the boy next door”
Reflecting on the end of Pride 2021 By Andrew Rimby In the first part of my Pride month Big Think, I ended with a desire to ponder why Whitman’s “Song of Myself” spoke to my queerness so profoundly, and why it spurred the question “who is picking this text up and finding themselves reflected back?”Continue reading “Andrew’s Big Think #2, Part 2: “I am not the boy next door””
Erika’s Big Think #2: The Orange on the Seder Plate
By Erika Grumet “That’s why her hair is so big. Because it’s full of secrets.” -Damian, Mean GIrls “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) -Walt Whitman, Song of Myself A hundred and fifty-ish years apart, and we queers are still talking about secrets and contradictions and theContinue reading “Erika’s Big Think #2: The Orange on the Seder Plate”
Blog-posts Lead to Discussion…
By Adam Katz One of my favorite new activities is writing a blog post and having someone I care about bring it up in conversation. I like doing the reverse, as well, not surprisingly. My recent Big Think, about trying to shed the homophobic bias I was invisibly raised with, led to an amazing conversationContinue reading “Blog-posts Lead to Discussion…”
Some Thoughts on The Color Purple: A Postscript to Adam’s Big Think #2
By Adam Katz First of all, what an awesome book. I find it interesting when an author goes all in on accents and dialects, as if to demonstrate that it can be done without compromising the respect the reader owes the characters. As if to say: it’s not how a person speaks that should determineContinue reading “Some Thoughts on The Color Purple: A Postscript to Adam’s Big Think #2”
Adam’s Big Think #2: Performing at the Cringe Festival: Becoming an Ally
By Adam Katz Early on in my relationship with my very first girlfriend, she told me about how she broke the exciting news to her friends that she was dating someone new: this guy who has all these interests: he likes to knit and listen to opera and draw and play piano, and… To whichContinue reading “Adam’s Big Think #2: Performing at the Cringe Festival: Becoming an Ally”
Andrew’s Big Think #2:
“I Don’t Have to Wait for you to Give me the Key.” By Andrew Rimby I spoke those words when working through my writer’s block during a Zoom writing session a few weeks ago. When I said this, Tiffany Sowa (fellow contributor) looked at me and said “Andrew, that’s it. That’s where your writer’s blockContinue reading “Andrew’s Big Think #2:”
Erika’s Big Think #1:Coming out of the Poetry Closet
By Erika Grumet It’s a little ironic, I was the one who proposed that the topic for this month’s Big Think… should be “writing about ourselves as writers.” Of all the members of the Ivory Tower team, I’m the one who really struggles to self-identify as “a writer” and in fact often actively resists theContinue reading “Erika’s Big Think #1:Coming out of the Poetry Closet”
Andrew’s Big Think #1:
Moving Back and Forth Between Writing Projects (or a lesson in overcoming writer’s block) As I write this, it’s currently 11:40 pm on a Friday, and I keep thinking about the next paragraph I’m adding to my dissertation chapter. I just ended by introducing Whitman’s comparison of his 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass toContinue reading “Andrew’s Big Think #1:”
About The Big Think
Welcome to The Big Think in the Ivory Tower Boiler Room. The Ivory Tower Boiler Room is a collaborative effort. Adam and Andrew’s collaboration on the podcast spawned the writing group. Andrew invited Mary to the writing group, Adam brought Erika on board (credit summer camps for those connections–Andrew and Mary went to camp together,Continue reading “About The Big Think”