Since our blog debuted in 2017, we have published 500+ posts. While some of you may have been with us from the start (thank you, loyal readers!), others may have joined us more recently.
So, we’re highlighting periodically some of the posts that have garnered a lot of views or that address topics of continuing interest in the current moment — posts that you may have missed or that you might want to revisit.
Today, we feature a post in honor of Earth Day earlier this week and for continuing conversations about climate in our current moment: “Really, It’s in Your Best Interest to Join Captain Jack in a Life of Piracy” by Achilles Seastrom (MA ’23).
As Achilles explains,
I know what you’re thinking. Pirates are the bad guys. They pillage and plunder and don’t get me started on what they would do to a drunken sailor!
Yes and no. Pirates got dirty. We should not excuse the violence they used to voice their revolutionary tendencies. However, their intention, whether the pirate be swashbuckling brigand or modern media pirate, is usually to resist systems that exploit and prey upon people and nature alike in order to line the pockets of the few (Dawdy and Bonni). When we talk about conservation, there is perhaps no figure as important as one that can stand against exploitative profit-driven capitalism.
Read more at “Really, It’s in Your Best Interest to Join Captain Jack in a Life of Piracy“ — and our thanks to Achilles (now a MFA student and Pearl Hogrefe Fellow at Iowa State University) for this contribution!
— Karin Westman, Department Head
K-State English 