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Victor Turner: time and space
This is really just a note to myself, partly because I want to remember some things I learned about Victor Turner this year, and partly because it’s good for me to remember that I learned them from my...
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The sun and the moon
You’ve probably heard that Bill Nye was booed in Waco, Texas for saying that the moon did not shine its own light but reflected the light of the sun. Apparently a number of people decided that he was...
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Words and other languages
A few weeks ago my class had an extensive discussion of the “slutwalk,” in which female students put on provocative clothing (or whatever clothing they like) and parade the campus in order radically to...
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Students speak
The two student speeches at graduation yesterday were structured loosely around the usual themes: how nice life had been at college, how scary it was to be leaving, and how the members of the...
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RIP Maurice Sendak
Sometimes my class in Children’s Literature goes really well, and sometimes not so well. When it works, it’s because the students are interested in the philosophical issues raised by the texts, and...
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Internalized oppression in the academy (Gill#1)
I’ve just read a piece by Rosalind Gill of King’s College, London trying to describe something I’ve also been trying to describe for years: the pressures of contemporary academic existence. When I talk...
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Grade inflation, and academic incivility (Gill #2)
Earlier this year, I attended a production of 42nd Street at Stratford. It was a satisfactory production, though hardly earth-shaking, but the audience gave it standing ovation. And it was at this...
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Flipping the classroom
My college is talking about “flipping the classroom” and “blended learning” so I went on wikipedia to find out what they were. Basically the idea is for a professor put his lectures on video so that...
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Magnetic paint: go away
The craze these days for chalkboard walls is getting complicated. The latest thing is to use a metal-based paint under the chalkboard paint so that your kid has a wall that is both chalkable and...
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Arendt and Milgram
In today’s Opinionator, Roger Berkowitz describes the most common misreading of Eichmann in Jerusalem, which has Arendt attributing Eichmann’s actions to following orders and, by extension, using the...
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Un-habeas corpus
This discussion of Sherlock 3.1 is replete with spoilers. Other reviewers have said the obvious things and said them well. Last night’s Sherlock was short on plot, but forgivably so, as it was so very...
View ArticleNine Folds Make a Paper Swan
What’s lacking in this world is analyses of second-rate novels. When I finish a novel I like to figure it out. What does the title mean? How do the parts interact? When he sent the letter, did he...
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Why I left facebook
Yeah, well, you probably already know most of why i left facebook. If you’re on facebook, or you know someone on facebook, you know what kind of poison it is. It’s even likely you’re considering...
View ArticleBad Sex: La Belle Sauvage
The major reviews of La Belle Sauvage seem all to be written by superfans of the original series, and The Guardian, Telegraph, etc. gush as much as is compatible with respectable critical writing. I...
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