March 15: No Class – Spring Break!

Via Zak Jensen; used with permission

But wait! Doesn’t spring break warrant investigation, too?! (Thanks for the suggestion, Katie Shaw!) If you’re wondering about the cultural and political-economic history of this traditional mid-semester recess and bacchanalian rite of passage – and I’m not suggesting you should be – you might try:

And what about the academic calendar as a whole? Different regions of the world have conventionalized very different schedules. How have we naturalized our late-August-through-mid-May routine in the US?