Leigh M. Johnson

In Praise of “Very Short Introductions”

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy 1 Comment

This semester, I’ve decided to use a few of the texts from the Very Short Introductions Series published by Oxford University Press in my courses. These very small, very cute, and very inexpensive little books, according to OUP, offer “concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects.” There are almost 200 titles in…

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R.I.P. David Foster Wallace

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy 2 Comments

Novelist, MacArthur “genius” and postmodern wunderkind, David Foster Wallace, was found dead in his home on Friday night after hanging himself. He was only 46. I know that just a week ago I was poking fun at the cult-status of Wallace’s Infinite Jest. I feel bad about that now. So, let me say for the…

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The Trouble with Rapture

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Politics 1 Comment

With Hurrican Ike, Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy, and the sale of Merril Lynch to Bank of America, it was pretty rough last weekend in the news. So, you may be interested to learn that according to The Rapture Index, which is a “Dow Jones Industrial Average of end-time activity,” we’re sitting at a very uncomfortable level…

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The “Handwriting” of College Radio

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Music 2 Comments

Yesterday, in my capacity as the faculty advisor for Rhodes Radio, I was a part of the committee charged with interviewing and selecting the next General Manager for the radio station. Because our little Rhodes Radio is still in its infancy stage, in a town with an abundance of colleges/universities yet a paucity of independent/college…

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Blogging in the Classroom

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Teaching, The Search for Values 3 Comments

I’m trying out a new pedagogical technique in all of my courses this semester. I’ve set up a blog for each course and have required students, as a part of their grade, to contribute regularly to those sites. In one of my courses, blog posts and comments are the only writing students are required to…

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Still here…

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Uncategorized 3 Comments

Several of you have written to me recently inquiring after my absence here on the blog. So, I wanted to let you all know that I am, in fact, still alive. I was in a fairly nasty auto accident about a week ago. (See my poor, beloved, now “totaled” car to the left.) Short story:…

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Who Is The Decider?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Obama, Politics Comments Off on Who Is The Decider?
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Drinking the “Liberal Arts” Kool-Aid

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Teaching 7 Comments

I know, I know. I should be writing about Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention. But I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’m still shocked and dismayed that I didn’t see one single non-white face in the Convention audience on television last night. And I’m also still amused that, at one…

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Wake Up!

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Teaching 3 Comments

I’m teaching a course on “Existentialism” this semester, which is not only one of my favorite philosophical movements, but also one of my favorite things to teach. As I’ve said to my colleagues many times before, existentialism is the one philosophy that seems to have been created for 18- to 25-year-olds. The list of existentialist…

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An(other) Omen Read Wrong

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics 5 Comments

Recently, I was reminded of a passage from Micheal Herr’s excellent 1977 memoir Dispatches. Herr was a war correspondent for Esquire magazine during the Vietnam War, he helped write the screenplays for Coppola’s Apocolypse Now and Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, and he (along with Truman Capote, Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe) pioneered the literary genre…

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