Ned Gallagher in Havana.

Ned Gallagher:
What I’m Up To

 

Spring Break

“Thou mettest with things dying, I with things newborn.”
- William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale

 

The Rites of Spring

Florida

At this point in my life, a vacation in March is well established in the overall rhythm of my year. I am one who needs to soak up some warm weather after a cold New England winter, and most years this involves a trip south with the school’s tennis team(s). That is certainly the case in 2025, as eight student-athletes joined me the past week in South Florida for some training in the Sunshine State. It was an enjoyable group and we had a productive week capped off by a day at the Miami Open pro tournament.

I had planned to spend eight days in Italy the preceding week, with some time in Florence, Siena, and Rome, but I called off that trip just days before mostly because I decided I needed some unscheduled down time at home instead of schlepping around Europe after an unusually busy time of year. Teaching four preps this past term, staging a trip to Washington for our government classes, evaluating hundreds of student-athlete applicants as part of the school’s admissions process, and interviewing almost four dozen candidates for the JFK Program I oversee—on top of interscholastic coaching and regular dorm duty—all made for a somewhat exhausting winter! I may try to rescheduke a visit to Italy in June instead. But no regrets in opting for an easier stretch the first week after the term ended.

So the spring break ritual was, as usual, restorative this time around. I am now looking forward to the start of the spring term with energy and enthusiasm.

 

 

What I’m Reading

Working On Now:

  • Chris Hayes, The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource
  • Oswyn Murray, The Muse of History: The Ancient Greeks from the Enlightenment to the Present
  • Arnold Weinstein, The Lives of Literature: Reading, Teaching, Knowing
  • Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
  • Nicholas Carr, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart

Recently Finished:

  • Geoff Harkness, 40-Foot Lemon: The Complete Story of U2’s Pop & PopMart
  • Adam Gopnik, The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery
  • Steve Berry, The Medici Return
  • Evan Puschak, Escape into Meaning: Essays on Superman, Public Benches, and Other Obsessions
  • Jeremi Suri, The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office
  • Robert V. Remini, The House: The History of the House of Representatives
  • Rod Laver and Larry Writer, The Golden Era: The Extraordinary Two Decades When Australians Ruled the Tennis World

On Deck:

  • Helen Castor, The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV
  • James Andrew Miller, Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers
  • Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
  • Donald J. Robinson, How to Think Like Socrates: Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Modern World

For Courses I’m Taking This Spring:

  • Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
  • Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments
  • Anton Chekov, “A Joke”
  • Henry James, “The Real Thing”
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Cut Glass Bowl”
  • Franz Kafka, Kafka’s Selected Stories
  • Franz Kafka, The Castle
  • non-Pauline epistles of the New Testament
  • The Book of Revelations
  • Mitchell G. Reddish, Apocalyptic Literature: A Reader
  • Peter Bondanella, Italian Cinema: From NeoRealism to the Present

For Courses I’m Teaching This Spring:

  • Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
  • Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
  • Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  • Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun
  • Bernard Schwartz, A History of the Supreme Court

 

 

What I’m Watching

Ongoing—Television:

  • The Wheel of Time, season 3 (Prime Video)
  • Daredevil: Born Again (Disney+)
  • Ludwig (BritBox)
  • coverage of the Miami Open tournament (Tennis Channel, TennisTV)
  • The Righteous Gemstones, season 4 (Max)
  • Giro/Haji (Netflix)

Recently Finished—Television:

  • Douglas Is Cancelled (BritBox)
  • coverage of the BNP Paribas Open tournament (Tennis Channel, TennisTV)
  • The Recruit, season 2 (Netflix)
  • Paradise (Hulu)
  • Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (Disney+)
  • Black Doves (Netflix)
  • SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night (Peacock)
  • Australian Open tennis coverage (ESPN, ESPN+)

On Deck—Television:

  • The Studio (Apple TV+)
  • Lodge 49, seasons 1 & 2 (AMC+)
  • Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (PBS Passport)
  • Andor, season 2 (Disney+)
  • The Last of Us, season 2 (Max)
  • coverage of the European clay court season (Tennis Channel, TennisTV)
  • Bosch: Legacy, season 3 (Prime Video)

Recently Finished—Films:

  • Black Bag (d. Steven Soderbergh, 2025), cinema
  • The Journey (d. Nick Hamm, 2016), streamed on Acorn
  • Out of the Past (d. Jacques Tourneur, 1947), streamed on iTunes
  • Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Deadpool & Wolverine (d. Brad Baruh, 2024), streamed on Disney+
  • Ladies & Gentlemen . . . 50 Years of SNL Music (d. Questlove & Oz Rodriguez, 2025), streamed on Peacock
  • Mickey 17 (d. Bong Joon Ho, 2025), cinema
  • Captain America: Brave New World (d. Julius Onah, 2025), cinema
  • Phantom Lady (d. Robert Siodmak, 1944), Internet Archive
  • Scarlet Street (d. Fritz Lang, 1945), Prime Video
  • Saturday Night (d. Jason Reitman, 2024), airline
  • My Man Godfrey (d. Gregory La Cava, 1936), Prime Video
  • The Lady from Shanghai (d. Orson Welles, 1947), streamed on iTunes
  • Brave the Dark (d. Damian Harris, 2025), cinema
  • The Story of G.I. Joe (d. William Wellman, 2024), streamed on Prime Video
  • Shutter Island (d. Martin Scorsese, 2010), streamed on Paramount+
  • The Ox-Bow Incident (d. William Wellman, 1943), streamed on iTunes
  • The Brutalist (d. Brady Corbet, 2024), cinema
  • The Grapes of Wrath (d. John Ford, 1940), streamed on iTunes
  • They Were Expendable (d. John Ford, 1945), streamed on iTunes
  • Bill Maher: Is Anyone Else Seeing This? (d. Perri Peltz & Matthew O’Neill, 2025), streamed on Max
  • Surveilled (d. Perri Peltz & Matthew O’Neill, 2024), streamed on Max

 

 

What I’m Listening To

Music:

  • The Ink Spots, Anthology

Podcasts:

  • This Is History with Dan Jones

 

 

What I’ve Been Attending

  • Miami Open tennis tournament, Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL, March
  • New England Interscholastic Squash Championships, St. George’s School, Middletown, RI, March
  • Macbeth, Little Theater, Paul Mellon Arts Center, Choate Rosemary Hall, February
  • RSPA Town Hall virtual meeting, February
  • “The Chicago Principles at Ten Years: University Free Expression Then, Now, and Tomorrow” virtual conference, January

 

 

Where I’m Traveling

Recent Trips:

  • Stuart, Port St. Lucie, and Miami Gardens, Florida
  • Newport, Rhode Island
  • Key West, Florida

Upcoming Trips:

  • London
  • San Francisco

 

 

What I’m Learning

  • finishing a year-long close read of the New Testament in a trio of UChicago courses

 

 

What I’m Looking Forward To

  • warm weather
  • welcoming a new cohort of 18 JFK Program students this spring
  • sending off the Class of 2025 in style

 

 

Thanks to Derek Sivers for his concept of the /now page.
Revised: 23 March 2025