Sunday, 20th October 2019

Economists and English Majors

Sure, I’m on board with there being more narrative people around, as this WaPo article suggests. The economists in this story seem to want to have them around for rhetorical reasons, though,… Continue reading…

Sunday, 11th November 2018

Collaboration

A Chronicle of Higher Education article on English departments, discussing among others Julie Thompson Klein and Jonathan Kramnick (and, btw, I’d love to sit in on a discussion between these two on interdisciplinarity). It… Continue reading…

Friday, 24th August 2018

More Humanities and More Crisis

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/08/the-humanities-face-a-crisisof-confidence/567565/?elqTrackId=77ba533c40224dee9d37c6f1ac6346d5&elq=da89f6bd4547464281a76e3e9e730bd9&elqaid=20251&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9482

A report in the Atlantic tracks the decline of the humanities since the financial crisis of 2008. The decline is both in the number of students in classes and the number of majors…. Continue reading…

Wednesday, 8th August 2018

Another proposal to save the humanities (that won’t work)

I’m generally not a huge fan of Ross Douthat, but I don’t dismiss him on principle the way I do some other columnists. When he talks about the humanities, though, he makes me want to… Continue reading…

Wednesday, 5th July 2017

The World is Complex – That’s Why We Need All of Us

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…

Wednesday, 19th April 2017

The Key to Discovery: Pose the Right Questions

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…

Wednesday, 19th October 2016

Try Leaving Your Comfort Zone — You Might Learn Something About Yourself

From Oct. 19, 2016

http://stars.library.ucf.edu/ucf-forum/224

I’m in Cape Town, South Africa, as I write this. I’ve been heading to South Africa about once a year or so for a while now, and before that… Continue reading…