Dr. Shaun Duke, Professional Nerd

Editor. Writer. Professor. Host.

Academia During a Pandemic: Hunker Down Philosophy 3A

Today marks the resumption of classes at Bemidji State University, all of which are now housed online. Many of my colleagues around the world have come up with a variety of different ways of flipping their classes over. My focus has been on enhancing online interaction and replacing face-to-face interaction as much as is reasonable. […]

One More Week!

In a lot of ways, I’ve been pretty fortunate to work for Bemidji State University. While losing two weeks of class sucks, BSU didn’t choose to rush into the university-wide shift to remote learning. The result? A lot more breathing room (for me). So in addition to all of the things I’ve been doing to […]

Academia During a Pandemic: Hunker Down Philosophy 2A

I made it through a week of isolation. Mostly. I still went “out,” but in my car to play Pokemon or to occasionally go to the store to get things I wasn’t able to get earlier. At odd hours. In that time, I’ve apparently decided to blog on a regular basis, catalogue my books (finally), […]

Online Coursework, Here We Come!

I’ve received official word that classes at Bemidji State University will switch over to remote learning for an undefined amount of time starting on Friday (3/20). I’d assuming this was going to happen when I talked about this stuff a few days ago, so it wasn’t a surprise. And that means all my little preparations […]

Space Opera, the Course: Seeking Your Input!

Last month, I asked the following on Twitter (and Facebook): The idea behind this came from a conversation with the lovely Nina Niskanen. She suggested that I might teach a course on space opera for a more general audience using an online service . Her own interest came from the perspective of a writer who wanted […]