In the recent film “The Prestige” (based on the Christopher Priest novel of the same name), the narrator explains the structure of a standard magic trick. Every illusion, we are told, has three parts: First, there is the setup, or the “pledge,” in which the magician shows us something that appears ordinary but is probably…
Read MoreI just saw “The Last King of Scotland”, the film about Idi Amin (starring Forrest Whittaker). Although I think that Whittaker’s performance was impressive, I am slightly disturbed by a recent trend in filmmaking that portrays “African conflicts” in a reductively “nativist” kind of way. Here’s my problem– in the recent films I have seen…
Read MoreFor those of you who have been following my trials and tribulations with finishing the last stages of the PhD, I am happy to announce that I have finally defeated my arch-nemesis, the Logic Exam. Yeah, that’s right, the sun even shines on a lame dog sometimes. Only one last (big) hoop to jump through…
Read MoreI was eager to read the “10 Questions About the Future of the Humanities in America” posed by Thomas Mallon in the current issue of The American Scholar. Then, alas, I actually read them. If you haven’t already seen them, here they are: ——————- 1. How can American professors learn to write about literature in…
Read MoreI want to give kudos to a friend of mine, Alex Stehn, for being such a fantastic teacher. He was telling me the other day about his desire to teach a class on Christianity and Marxism–a really fantastic proposition in my view–and it got us talking about the way many of our students think about…
Read MoreI recently viewed the excellent documentary “The Fall of Fujimori” about Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. Fujimori was elected President in 1992 on a populist platform, during a time when Peru was being sacked by both radical insurgent groups and abject poverty. As you can probably see from the photo (left), Fujimori’s win was surprising, as…
Read More[NOTE: I know all of my Greek-y friends are going to want to respond to this post with some elaborate explanation of logos. Please refrain. Please.] About a month ago, my housemate began making fun of my various pretensions of expertise by attaching the suffix “-ologist” to whatever it was that I was talking about….
Read MoreI know that we all have our own horror stories of bureaucratic asphyxiation…but recently in my life, I have found myself increasingly strangled by red tape. I suspect that it may be a particularly pronounced struggle in academia–maybe politics is as bad, but it can’t be much worse–and I’ve found my patience (and diplomacy) wearing…
Read Moreso here’s the brief history of my attempts to keep any sort of diary. I start on some day in the first week of january, write for a max of four days atraight, revist the diary at some point in may and then discard the whole thing. basically, pathetic. however, since i am sitting at…
Read Moreso i heard (again) on NPR today a debate about the morailty of torture. and this is what i have to say about these debates in general, which i am hearing all-too-frequently thse days: ARE YOU KIDDING ME? IS THIS REALLY AN ETHICALLY “GRAY” AREA? WHEN DID IT BECOME DIFFICULT FOR US TO SAY– WITHOUT…
Read More
Recent Comments