"The irreligious mind is simply the  mind, the zombie, abstracted mind, that does not see the things that grow in the earth and feel glad about them, but only knows prices and figures and statistics. In a world of numbers you can be irreligious, unless the numbers themselves are incarnate in astronomy and music. But for that, they must have something to do with seasons and with harvests, with the joy of the Neolithic peoples who for millennia were quiet and human." (Thomas Merton, When the Trees Say Nothing, p. 71) This irreligious mind of prices, figures, and statistics has weighed the w ..read more

Reflecting on a Christian Woman Killed by Police in her Home This morning I woke up dreaming about my brother, Joseph Shevock, Jr, who died a couple of years ago, ostensibly of an overdose. I said a prayer for him, and then memory turned to a friend of mine from my youth, Rodney Litzinger, who died in 1989 when he was 17. According to rumors he was either drunk driving or speeding or both. Rumors always lay blame where none is helpful. Rodney was a little older than me, and that summer Rodney had stopped hanging out at the Patton Pool, where we spent time together, in the same group of friends ..read more

Last month, after finishing my school year as a middle school general music teacher, I flew out to Victoria, British Columbia to present my philosophical research; I recorded it on my GoPro, and for those of you who like to experience research by listening to it, here you go (in 4 parts ..read more

This morning I am playing around with ChatGPT 3.5, which is the free version of the app. I am doing this because 1. 8th grade guitar students introduced me to ChatGPT during class and 2., I'm currently working on a paper with a new friend, Jacob Holster, on AI models and conviviality. I decided to prompt ChatGPT 3.5, which is the free version, to create a debate on Beauty, Love, and the Trinity between Gregory of Nyssa, Irenaeus of Lyon, Jerome, and Origen, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Berry, Leonardo Boff, Thich Nhat Hanh and Gandhi. The first four figures are well-known Chu ..read more

Place-conscious educational theory made its way into music education scholarship through the work of . Both draw extensively form s critical place-conscious scholarship, but both have meaningful differences from one another. These differences might emerge in what is emphasized by each, and what is de-emphasized or even ignored. Stauffer’s place-conscious theory focuses the social, highlighting especially aspects of human narrative. Places become places through storytelling. This is true.             In contrast, Bates’s place theory emphas ..read more

While the publication of my book five years ago has generated some alternative expansions of what it means to teach music for ecoliteracy, (such as by Vincent Bates, Tawnya Smith, Atillio Lafont di Niscia) there have not been explicit objections to the idea of teaching music for ecoliteracy. One objection, sort of, that was made explicit came from Lise Vaugeois’s 2019 review of the book . Vaugeois is a senior scholar whose long body of work on sociology, social justice, colonization, and institutionalization in our field speaks for itself. And Vaugeois has put money-in-the-mouth, as the saying ..read more

New research from Tel Aviv University and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat found plastic additives were disruptive to the larval development of corals and other coral reef organisms in Eilat. ( ) The Eilat Coral Beach Nature Reserve offers an important site of recreation and ecology in Israel. While this (and many reefs) offer scuba divers access to natural beauty of a reef ecosystem, Eilat offers (human) visitors access to Wading pools, bridges for observing the reef, and other lookouts for observing wildlife. ( ) Coral reefs actually create their own music, which is ..read more

            What I mean when I say is that trees, in some way, converse with one another. The German forester, Peter Wohlleben, wrote a successful book (“Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How they Communicate”) on the interconnected lives of trees living in a woodland. ( ) “Trees are far more alert, social, sophisticated—and even intelligent—than we thought.” Using evocative language, Wohlleben discusses “two massive beech trees growing next to each other. … ‘These two are old friends,’ he says. ‘They are very considerate in sharing th ..read more

This month I have worked with students at the University of Freiburg, as they enact eco-literate music pedagogy. I have always called for this to be a pedagogy on soil, following Ivan Illich’s call for a . By “on soil,” I mean radically place-based. Place-conscious. Place-responsive. Emplaced. As such, many of the most pertinent ecological challenges faced in Freiburg, Germany may differ from those here in Central PA, U.S. The musics, which are central to ecological action, that emerge in the grassroots of Central Europe are likely different than those that emerge in the grassroots of Central ..read more

Today I received a copy of The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning edited by Janice L. Waldron, Stephanie Horsley, and Kari K. Veblen. At a risk of being obsolete by its release, the authors wrote chapters for this handbook exploring the following questions: 1. How do social media and social networking enable and support learning in diverse contexts. 2. How meaningful is the notion of participatory culture for thinking about social media and music education. 3. How are issues such as communication, mass self-communication, power, democracy, and identity negotiated in a networked ..read more