My latest post for The Public Humanist begins like this: I was a Creon until I realized that it put me against Antigone. Now I’m not so sure. Last week, listening to public radio, I heard about the protests against the burial of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. I nodded in agreement as various voices denounced the alleged…
Here’s my latest publication, for the Boston Globe Magazine’s Connections column. It’s about the birds and the bees and what that phrase helps explain about sexuality (spoiler: it explains nothing).
I wrote an article for the Newton Tab about Pete Seeger: Pete Seeger turns 93 on May 3. He is known as a songwriter for writing songs as well-known as “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and “Turn, Turn, Turn,” as an advocate of folk music for popularizing and adapting the songs of others, like…
I conducted a Q&A with a nurse who coordinated a flu clinic for Occupy Boston protestors. The CommonHealth blog at WBUR posted it.
I took a class on knife sharpening at Stoddard’s, one of the oldest businesses in Boston (est. 1800). Then I wrote it up for WBUR’s Public Radio Kitchen.
I occasionally write about the kids for one reason or another and the Globe has published a recent essay on identity and food shopping here.
I helped develop a website for the PBS program Keeping Score, specifically for the second season. I did some editing on the sections about three compositions — Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, Ives’ Holidays Symphony and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony — and worked a lot on a map feature that shows classical music milestones of various eras on…
Now online is a review I wrote of the Virtual Museum of Iraq. It’s a really beautiful, well thought out site but I hate it for reasons that become apparent in the review. Here’s the first paragraph: The Virtual Museum of Iraq serves as an excellent multimedia introduction to the history and archaeology of Iraq,…
The Journal of Near Eastern Studies has just published my article on Sumerian music (including singing and iconography). Here’s the citation and the first few hundred words: Jack Cheng, “A Review of Early Dynastic III Music: Man’s Animal Call,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies July 2009, Vol. 68, No. 3: 163-178. A review of the…
After my nephew Harrison came to visit us, I wrote a short essay about being an uncle vs. being a father and it was published in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine yesterday. Here’s the link.
Jack Cheng, PhD 