Lucky Number Seven

It’s hard to believe the life that Improbable Fictions has had thus far: twenty five separate staged readings since 2010, covering Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Euripides, Elizabeth Cary, and Terry Pratchett, readings that have drawn on actors and audience members from the University of Alabama and the community of Tuscaloosa. It’s my pleasure today to announce aContinue reading “Lucky Number Seven”

The Selfless ‘Inside Out’: Not a Problem

I’d like to take a moment to respond to Alva Noë’s piece “The Awkward Synthesis That Is ‘Inside Out’” on NPR’s Cosmos and Culture, which I think misrepresents Pixar’s film. I’m sympathetic to Noë’s reactions…I’m just not sure Noë saw the same film I did. I should start by noting that Noë isn’t reviewing Inside Out, norContinue reading “The Selfless ‘Inside Out’: Not a Problem”

Cognitive Disability as Straw Man

I’d like to point to two articles that have been trending on Facebook in recent weeks to point to a common thread I’ve seen in conversations about ‘mental illness.’ I’m using scare quotes here because the phrase ‘mental illness’ is itself problematic, for it implies that any deviation from statistically normal human cognition (called neurotypicality)Continue reading “Cognitive Disability as Straw Man”

Rude Mechanicals Presents All’s Well that Ends Well

Rude Mechanicals opens its season with “All’s Well that Ends Well.” The show is free and open to the public. The show runs from May 26 to May 30. All performances will take place at Manderson Landing. Music starts at 7:30; show starts at 8:00. In case of rain (it will likely rain), the showContinue reading “Rude Mechanicals Presents All’s Well that Ends Well”

Strode presents Love’s Labour’s Lost

The Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies presents its final film of the 2014-15 Shakespeare Film Series, Kenneth Branagh’s 2000 Love’s Labour’s Lost. Free and open to the public. The Facebook Event Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare The King of Navarre and his three attendant lords make a pact to forswear women for threeContinue reading “Strode presents Love’s Labour’s Lost”

Forbidden Planet, Wednesday!

Join us this Wednesday, March 11th at 7:30pm in Tuscaloosa’s Bama Theatre for Forbidden Planet! If you consider yourself a film or science fiction geek and haven’t seen Forbidden Planet before, consider this Wednesday your chance to get right with the world before your geek license is revoked. This movie sets up so many tropes that will come toContinue reading “Forbidden Planet, Wednesday!”