The Mega Ode, Volume 2
To conclude our 2022 Month of Academic Odes, we solicited these appreciations from, and of, our community.
Read MoreCategory: Academic Odes
An Ode to the Afro-American Patrolmen’s League Collection
By Julius L. Jones The history of African Americans on the Chicago Police Department (CPD) begins in 1871. The same year the Great Chicago Fire destroyed approximately three-and-a-half square miles of the city, leaving 100,000 people unhoused, James L. Shelton was appointed the first African American member of CPD. Since then, African Americans have served […]
Read MoreAn Ode to Bus No. 60 and to Public Transportation in Madrid
By Inbal Ofer As a social historian I have always found public services to be a fascinating domain of research. They are a meeting point between theories of progress and the practicality of everyday life, and between the aspirations of professionals, the dictates of national, regional and local bureaucracies, and the needs of different users. […]
Read MoreAn Ode to Saying No
By Avigail Oren We are reprising our Month of Academic Odes on the The Metropole because, as it turns out, winter 2021 was not the hoped-for end of the pandemic. Here we are, in February 2022, with all the more reason to embrace the positive (as long as it isn’t on a COVID test). Last […]
Read MoreThe Mega-Ode
To conclude our Month of Academic Odes, we solicited these beautiful shout-outs from urban historians and urbanists. They speak to the collegiality of our field and the role of relationships in the construction of knowledge. Thankfully, only one is written in rhyme. So without further ado… Amanda Seligman’s Ode to Ann Durkin Keating, Jim Grossman, […]
Read MoreAn Ode to Kenneth Kusmer (1945-2020)
When Kenneth Kusmer died in November, urban historians lost a (humble) giant in the field. In this ode, Walter Greason remembers and honors his dissertation advisor. By Walter Greason When I was a doctoral student in the late 1990s, Temple University’s graduate seminars in history met in Center City, Philadelphia, at 1616 Walnut Street. One […]
Read MoreTo Queens, With Love
By Katie Uva In an essay first published in The New York Times in 2001, Colson Whitehead wrote, “You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it.” I started building my private New York at the top of a hill, one of the several that gave my neighborhood, Forest […]
Read MoreAn Ode to Students
By Allison Raven Of the many abstract nouns in the world, “injustice” is perhaps the one best suited for seventh graders. Middle schoolers in general have very profound senses of justice, and certainly know when they are experiencing an injustice in school. Homework: injustice. Uniforms: injustice. Ms. Raven counting them tardy when they intended to […]
Read MoreB’more Authentic: Teaching Difficult History in the College Classroom
By Menika Dirkson I’ll never forget my first mentor in graduate school. He was a black man from Baltimore who taught African American History at a predominantly white institution for over twenty years. I first met Dr. Lawrence “Larry” Little when I took his course as an undergraduate student at Villanova University. I thought he […]
Read MoreThe Metropole’s Month of Academic Odes
I need not explain that we have all had A YEAR. That is pretty well established; we are feeling the relentlessness of this pandemic mentally, emotionally, and physically. So at The Metropole, we wanted to brighten up this season of darkness with a little gratitude practice. The phrase “gratitude practice” makes me reflexively cringe, because […]
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