One Hand Laughing is Cheryl Klimaszewski’s virtual playground. I am an ethnographer, teacher, photographer, knitter, baker, gardener and cat owner based in Philadelphia.
I recently received my PhD in Communication, Information and Media from Rutgers – New Brunswick, where I spent several years studying and writing about Romanian vernacular museums.
I started this website in the mid-naughts because I wanted to learn HTML. I’ve since moved on to WordPress as part of my commitment to using open source technologies. I chose the name One Hand Laughing in the spirit of the Zen koan, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Not meant to be riddles with clever answers, koans are a way of opening one’s perception to greater truths.
The effort to “solve” a koan is intended to exhaust the analytic intellect and the egoistic will, readying the mind to entertain an appropriate response on the intuitive level.
“Koan | Zen Buddhism.” n.d. Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed October 8, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/koan.
This is the spirit I strive to bring to my research and creative endeavors: an open, engaged and expansive mind and, of course, one hand laughing . . .