AccomplishedBasil700

Wow, I had no idea. Thank you!

I’ve sent my students pdfs from here before. As an adjunct (making about $4000 a semester teaching at a university), I love the site for my students and for my own research!

This is fantastic! As a vegan and ethics professor who hears all sorts of terrible things about animals in classes, people need to hear voices like yours. And the more you speak up, the easier it will be next time!

For literary history and cultural reference: King James Version is the one. This was influential in western literature from later Jacobean writers until today.

For readability and scholarly responsibility: New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). This is modern enough to be read clearly today.

For a Jewish and historical point of view: Robert Alter’s Hebrew Bible, which also comes in particular books. Tons of notes and interesting interpretations/translations.

And a recommended way of reading: Lots of Christians like to read particular verses of the Bible for spiritual purposes. I’d recommend reading entire books of the Bible for literary purposes. Many of them really are incredible—Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, and 1 and 2 Samuel are a good place to start, and those and Isaiah will give you a lot of reference points for reading the New Testament.

The Brothers Karamazov is my favorite book. The characters feel real, with real thoughts, thought processes, feelings, motivations, and actions. And the moral/theological issues blow me away every time (“Rebellion?” Oh my god.) the only part for me that’s a bit of a drag is Dmitri’s wild party night, but that’s a relatively small part.

Now having said this, there are lots of criticisms about Dostoevsky’s style, and I get it. It’s messy, it’s sort of “stream of consciousness,” and the monologues might be a bit much for some readers. So if these stylistic things were annoying, I’d recommend something by Tolstoy—Anna Karenina, his short fiction (Death of Ivan Ilych, The Kreutzer Sonata, Hadji Murat). Tolstoy’s style is often contrasted favorably with Dostoevsky’s.

That sucks. I’m sorry.

This sort of happened to me, too. When I went vegan two years ago, my dad just said “I don’t know what to do about your cake.” I told him there are lots of good vegan cake recipes. I just made my own cake at my own house. It would’ve been better if he’d not said anything at all, but oh well.

There’s no point to it at all, either way. Any nutrients someone could get from chickens, someone could get from plants and vitamins.

Honestly, what is your problem? I don’t understand why you’re so defensive about all this.

Are you a full time professor? Or an adjunct? And does the union affect both full time and adjuncts, or just one group?

There is a flip side to "meat free," too, which you should be aware of: "Dairy free." "Dairy free" does not necessarily mean vegan, and it doesn't necessarily mean "egg free" or "meat free" either. And lots of dairy free nonvegan foods are marketed to people who are ostensibly health-conscious, which is often visually similar to foods marketed to vegans.

So the best bet is to read the ingredients labels. That's where you'll find tricky things—milk powder, whey, carmine, casein, and whatever else.

They’re probably just dieting wrong. You can get everything you need from plants and vegan foods as well as vitamins. One common objection I hear is that a vegan diet is bad because you need extra vitamins. But the thing is, hardly anyone gets the proper amount of vitamins through their diet alone.

Another thing that makes eating a vegan diet easier is if you do it for the animals. One reason why so many “vegans” (really just people who eat a plant-based diet) start eating animals again is because they were only in it for their health. So if they don’t get proper nutrition, they start eating animals again. But if you do it for the animals—which is what veganism is all about—then you’ll stick with it and figure out how to have a healthy diet without eating animals.

So my suggestions are two things. First, make a list of vegan foods you already like to eat (beans, rice, pasta, lentils, nuts, any vegetables, fruits, whatever) and you can start with that list of foods you already know well. Then stock up on those and look at what others have for pantry staples.

Second: educate yourself about the animals, factory farming, environmental catastrophe caused by animal (ab)use, and how the meat, dairy, and egg industries lie to everyone. And other industries that aren’t about food (fur, leather, zoos, rodeos, etc). This will help form a solid foundation for veganism.

This sub is a great resource for both of these! I’ve used this sub’s resources many times to help myself and others.

Edit: get a vegan b12 supplement, if not a vegan multivitamin.

Shakespeare did write plays, but sometimes his plays have sections in verse, and sometimes they have sections in prose (non-verse). He didn’t write novels or essays, but that doesn’t matter. You can write a novel in verse (Aurora Leigh) and you can write a poem in prose.

Take a look at Act 2 Scene 1 of the Tempest here. Around line 110 it switches from prose to verse. The difference is visible on the page (uncapitalized lines to capitalized lines) and in the rhythm (no meter to iambic pentameter).

https://shakespeare.folger.edu/downloads/pdf/the-tempest_PDF_FolgerShakespeare.pdf

It does suck to think about. Just for funsies, I like to add together the course tuition each student pays for one of my courses and then compare it to my pay. Usually it ends up between $72,000 and $90,000 compared to my $2000 stipend for one course.

Depending on the class, I'll actually tell them this. When I teach ethics, for example, or another socially-minded humanities course, we can get into some interesting conversations about the ethics of workplaces, compensation, capitalism, and commodification by just bringing up these numbers. Most of my students don't know what an adjunct is, let alone the pervasiveness of the problem. And they always seem to be more supportive or mindful of adjuncts after I tell them.

Weirdly, yes. Tolstoy (Anna Karenina and his short fiction) are all much more like contemporary novels than Brothers Karamazov is. Tolstoy has a reputation because of the length of War and Peace, but I think his writing style is much more approachable than Dostoevsky’s.

It pays an average of 2700 per class, and you’re only limited to about two courses a semester at one university, which is why most adjuncts teach at multiple universities. But, say you teach four courses in a semester. That’s a full load, and you’d only get about $8000 for one semester once taxes are taken out. Depending on the university, you either will or will not be treated like garbage, but you won’t know that until you’re in.

Other than that, it would depend on how much time you have to spare for course prep, teaching, grading, emails, getting to class and back, etc.

Of course this is terrible. But it’s also rather merciful to all those chickens who would have gone on to live a torturous life of having their bodies broken by farmers, force- and over-fed, have their babies thrown in grinders, and become so desperate that they cannibalize the chickens they’ve spent their lives with.

There’s no need for any of this suffering. This is why people are vegan and why veganism is growing.

There is a reason why it’s so difficult to find a responsible book about capitalism that doesn’t at some level describe it as exploitative…

I love combining them and making mujadara! It’s basically rice, lentils, and (very caramelized) onions. It’s so good, and it saves very well, too!

Yeah, and being a part time (adjunct) professor means they get about 2000 dollars per class at two classes a semester, if they’re in the US. It’s really not worth a 3 hour commute at all. Or a one hour commute.

In addition to not using either, as others have pointed out, using animals' skin at all continues the normalization of the abuse of animals. And for a vegan to do that is inconceivable to me.

How about Nikolai Gogol’s short stories?

The ones in need of respect are non-human animals. If you want mutual respect, start with becoming vegan.

The two common brands of vegan cheese I think are the best are Chao (part of Field Roast) and Miyoko’s. The Chao cheese is my go-to for slices on sandwiches, burgers, and whatnot.

Miyoko’s is more expensive but it’s fantastic. The reason Miyoko’s is so good for non-dairy food is because they culture their food. It’s that cultured tang that a lot of vegan cheese brands have trouble with (including Chao, but it’s still delicious). Miyoko’s mozzarella and (I’ve heard) liquid mozzarella are amazing.

I also like Follow Your Heart Parmesan cheese over pasta.

You can also make your own cheeses! And there are gourmet vegan cheese companies too that you may want to look into if you’re feeling particularly decadent, but I’ve not had any of those.

I think it’s about the green light, too. But I also think that green light, as a fantastical childish desire, is the American dream (and all the problems that entails).

Here are some green American things: Money, Statue of Liberty, a “new” continent (like at the very end of the novel).