Leigh M. Johnson

Older, even if not Wiser and Better-Looking

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Uncategorized 3 Comments

August 19- a good day for babies. 1973- a very fine vintage. As it just so happens, that was my birthday. August 19th is also the birthday of Bill Clinton, Orville Wright, Ogden Nash, Fred Thompson, Christian Slater, Tipper Gore and John Stamos. And the same day that Groucho Marx died. Heady times, indeed. I’ve…

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I Love Roller Derby

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Memphis, Pop Culture/Film, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Sports 1 Comment

I went to my first Roller Derby match last weekend. It was a double-header– the Women of Mass Destruction vs. The Angels of Death, followed by the Legion of Zoom vs. the PrissKilla Presleys. I expected it to be campy and entertaining, which it was, but what I didn’t expect was to learn that this…

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Have I mentioned that it’s HOT?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Memphis 2 Comments

Still registering over 100 degrees every day here in Memphis. My own heat-related misery was coumpounded in 2 ways yesterday, leading me to believe that the end (or my end, anyway) is nigh. First, we had Convocation yesterday afternoon. It was about 107 degrees when the “procession” started, during which we make about a quarter-mile…

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Man Love

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Teaching, The Search for Values 2 Comments

As I mentioned a little while ago, I am in the process of teaching The Epic of Gilgamesh. One of the themes we are concentrating on in my seminar this semester is “friendhip,” so the relationship between the epic’s two protagonists, Gilgamesh and Enkidu (pictured above), is a wonderful example with which to begin. Our…

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A Little Gift from the Professor’s Bag of Tricks

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Teaching, The Search for Values 2 Comments

I always appreciate it when colleagues of mine share from their bags of pedagogical tricks, so I thought I might pass on a recent experiment that generated an eminently “teachable moment” for me. I’ve just begin teaching the Iliad in my course, which is a small seminar-tpye class. Yesterday, I decided to utilize an exercise…

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No, you CAN’T just watch the movie!

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Teaching, The Search for Values 6 Comments

I am, again, inadvertantly competing with a couple of (bad) film versions of texts that I am teaching in my classes this semester. First, there’s the mega-blockbuster Troy, starring Brad Pitt as Achilles. Now, I haven’t seen Troy (though I have recently resolved to do so ASAP), but my understanding of it was that the…

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Revisionist Etiology

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Teaching, The Search for Values 5 Comments

[Note to readers: Please keep reading. I promise there is a payoff at the end of this entry!] Now that I’ve finished up the Iliad, we’re moving on to a three-week study of the Bible. Although I actually began college as a theology student (and I am a preacher’s kid), I’ve never actually taught the…

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For my “Celebrity” friends….

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Pop Culture/Film, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Teaching, The Search for Values 1 Comment

When I was in grad school, we used to regularly play a game called “Celebrity” at parties. It’s a fairly standard name-guessing game with three rounds in which the clue-giver is allowed fewer and fewer words to decsribe the “celebrity” whose name his/her teammates must guess. There aren’t many rules to “Celebrity.” However, the game…

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Who’s keeping the brothers?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, Teaching, The Search for Values 2 Comments

We’ve moved on to the story of Cain and Abel, which is actually one of my favorites in the Bible. There are so many unexplained details in that story. Why didn’t God like Cain’s offering? (I mean, Cain and Abel were only the 2nd and 3rd human beings ever… it’s not like there was an…

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Fishin’

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy 3 Comments

I have to give props to one of my friends, who will remain nameless for reasons of professional interest, for the following insight. There’s an old saying that goes: “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime. At SPEP, the aim…

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