Lane Igoudin

Writing Inward: The Power of Critical Self-Reflection

What is critical self-reflection? How does it apply to writing and language studies? My chapter “Critical Ethnography and Dialogic Reflection in Student-Led Language Research” in a new academic volume What Is Critical in Language Studies: Disclosing Social Inequalities and Injustice (Routledge, 2021) discusses critical self-reflection in language studies and is related to a study IContinue reading “Writing Inward: The Power of Critical Self-Reflection”

“Raising Them to Be Strong” | Father’s Day Post on Family Equality.org

Happy Father’s Day 2021! It’s been a deeply fulfilling, spiritually transformative journey for my husband and me. Our story, featured today on FamilyEquality.org, the nationwide LGBTQ family advocacy organization, recounts the joys and challenges of two men raising daughters since babyhood. So how do we do it?

Reading a New Story Live at AWP21

Read “The Grass Eater,” my new personal essay as part of a live virtual reading organized by the AWP Creative Writing Caucus at the virtual AWP 2021 on March 4. At the center of the story is a devilish 7-year-old who wrecks his mother’s seaside honeymoon. The setting is the Republic of Georgia; the timeContinue reading “Reading a New Story Live at AWP21”

“The iPad Wars” in City Tales 2020, a YouTube storytelling show

This was a new performance format for me to learn – I’d taped myself reading the essay “The iPad Wars” for City Tales, the annual storytelling reading by LACC students and faculty, and sent it to the organizers for post-production. The show went live on YouTube June 4. Previously published in The Citadel, “The iPadContinue reading ““The iPad Wars” in City Tales 2020, a YouTube storytelling show”

AWP20 “More Than Me” Panel Review in Assay

Great write-up in Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies about our panel at AWP. I didn’t know about it until a friend alerted me. Thank you, Stacy Murison and Heather Kim Lanier.

From a Failed Burglary to Hanukkah History

With these new additions, the Heliodorus stele places of the beginning of the Hanukkah story in its historical context.

Bird Sacrifices in Ancient Israel

Touring the caves of Tel Maresha in Beit Guvrin National Park (Israel), we came upon a columbarium – nesting boxes or perches for thousands of pigeons and doves.

“Christmas Dreidels” in The Citadel 2020

“Christmas Dreidels” explores one gay couple’s experience of building an adoptive family built on the richness of Jewish and African American heritages, one in which widely diverse cultural, racial, and religious backgrounds add up to a new, organic whole.

Mujerista Theology, or Finding Sacredness amidst Poverty and Oppression

This post is part of Blessing the Sea 4. Is search for the sacred a class privilege? Or to put it differently, are the opportunities to touch the divine – beyond the formal religious settings open to the masses, like synagogues, churches, or mosques – luxuries afforded only to those who can afford them, andContinue reading “Mujerista Theology, or Finding Sacredness amidst Poverty and Oppression”

Spirit and Spunk of a Merchant’s Wife

This book review is part of Blessing the Sea 4 newsletter. Gluckel of Hameln’s memoir has many layers. Written in simple, vivid language for her children over 300 years ago, it makes a surprisingly fast and lively read. There are anecdotes galore – funny, heartwarming, or bizarre, like when she and her mother give birthContinue reading “Spirit and Spunk of a Merchant’s Wife”