from Dec. 15, 2017
http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-french-invasion
We don’t have many events in philosophy, not “EVENTS” at least, you know, those earth-shaking seismic changes in intellectual culture. The October 1966 Johns Hopkins conference that was the… Continue reading…
from Dec. 6, 2017
28 years ago, I was teaching at Trent University and finishing my Ph.D. In the years before the internet, when you couldn’t just turn on your iPad and get… Continue reading…
From Nov. 14, 2017
Who is this Cathy O’Neil person and how is it possible that she is this clued out? “Where’s academia when it comes to helping us make sense of this?” Um,… Continue reading…
from Nov. 11, 2017
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/12/women#.WgZ48EZa1Wo.facebook
Some specifics in this article about a report on womens’ experience in universities. Some of the comments add to the discussion, for a change, rather than being the usual… Continue reading…
From Nov. 9, 2017
http://induecourse.ca/affirmative-action-for-conservative-academics/
Problems with Haidt, and against affirmative action for conservatives in higher education. The categories of “left” and “right” are often not all that helpful, and especially in university settings…. Continue reading…
From Nov. 8, 2017
I talk to John King on the Drunken Odyssey podcast, one year after the election of our Dear Leader, about staying sane.
From Oct. 16, 2017
https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Digital-Humanities-Bust/241424 [behind a paywall, unfortunately]
While some useful points are made here, to quote the author, there’s a rookie mistake. DH has never been about more data, or data being mistaken… Continue reading…
From Oct. 15, 2017
So, here’s a question for the media history people out there. I have a strong sense that after the invention of the printing press, the popular or vernacular press had relatively… Continue reading…
From Oct. 10, 2017
This article gives a decent description of how Thaler’s work pushed back against economic orthodoxy of the time. What’s interesting to me is that it also uncovers a fault… Continue reading…
From Oct. 6, 2017
The terrorist that perpetrated the killings last weekend in Las Vegas seems to me to represent a kind of turning point in the American experience of mass murder. To this point,… Continue reading…
from Sept. 24, 2017
It’s really, really hard to look at yourself and think about the social forces that gave you the good things you have. It’s much easier to naturalize the world as… Continue reading…
from Sept. 18, 2017
http://jxyzabc.blogspot.ca/2017/09/the-genius-fallacy.html
Wise thoughts for students in this post. I spend a lot of time talking to grad students about finding the question that motivates them. They often come with an… Continue reading…
From Sept. 14, 2017
More thoughts that come out of Hurricane Irma.
I’ve long identified myself, theologically, as closer to the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition than anything else. And what most people associate with that tradition is… Continue reading…
from Sept. 14, 2017
Ongoing Hurricane Irma update (I know, everyone has moved on to the next thing, but in Florida and Texas and India and Bangladesh and other places it continues after the news… Continue reading…
from Sept. 10, 2017
https://www.academia.edu/210695/Places_That_Disasters_Leave_Behind
As it happens, I’ve written about hurricanes before. I focused on how places get made, or don’t, in the wake of a disaster. The one in question for this… Continue reading…
From Aug. 21, 2017
https://www.nasa.gov/eclipselive#NASA+TV+Public+Channel
So, the eclipse is cool, yah. What strikes me about watching the coverage on the NASA channel and on the networks that are running it, is that they are… Continue reading…
From Aug. 3, 2017
This is a good overview of the Tommy Curry affair at Texas A&M. Similar stories are happening to other non-white academics across the US. The cowardly backlash against people… Continue reading…
From Aug. 2, 2016
I was told to do this, and I always do what I’m told. I will say in advance that these questions always raise more questions for me, rather than answers, because… Continue reading…
From July 21, 2017
I saw someone have a seizure today. I was at the other end of the aisle at Costco, and I saw this guy, looked about 60 or so, start to jerk… Continue reading…
From July 14, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/eclipse/?tid=ss_fb&utm_term=.b82fb4f12a48
This is a great WaPo site that looks at solar eclipses, past and present.
The 1979 eclipse went right over where I was in Saskatchewan. I was in an evangelical… Continue reading…
From July 12, 2017
Symposium: Is Free Speech Under Threat in the United States?
The right-of-center Commentary Magazine asked for 27 writers to give hot takes on whether free speech is under threat… Continue reading…
From July 5, 2017
https://today.ucf.edu/world-complex-thats-need-us/
Humanities is just about reading old books and writing new ones, isn’t it? Not anymore – think digital.
People usually think of the humanities as stuck in the past,… Continue reading…
From June 19, 2017
Just heard that an old friend passed away. Phil Merklinger, the other half of the philosophy department for the entire time I was at Augustana University College in Camrose. And, besides… Continue reading…
From June 2, 2017
As I work on organizing the HASTAC conference (http://hastac2017.org/), I’m also cleaning out my closet. I found this wrinkly but otherwise brand-new T-shirt, from the… Continue reading…
From May 28 2017
I agree with everything in this op-ed. And yet…
I still wait to find a single instance of anyone on the Trump side of the aisle say the same thing… Continue reading…
From April 19, 2017
https://today.ucf.edu/key-discovery-pose-right-questions/
Good teachers like to tell themselves and others that there are no dumb questions. Whether they actually believe that is another question, but even if it is true, it… Continue reading…
March 19, 2017
This is an insightful statement by a young novelist in France. I have to think that it could just as easily have been said in the US, or in any… Continue reading…
From March 19, 2017
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/san-people-africa-draft-code-ethics-researchers
This is entirely reasonable on the part of the San. The Navajo have a research officer in the US who deals with research groups, and does something similar to… Continue reading…
From March 9, 2017
So, I find myself on a committee (I was “voluntold”), which is supposed to come up with ideas for arts and cultural involvement in the community. This is part of a… Continue reading…
From March 1, 2017
http://today.ucf.edu/troubled-times-public-discourse-still-place-dialogue/
Carl von Clausewitz, the great theorist of war, said: “War is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on… Continue reading…