I just got home from a whole day at the first ever TEDxMemphis event– I say “first” because it looks like plans are already in the works for another one next year (THIS MUST HAPPEN!)– and I cannot possibly exaggerate what an amazing, informative, inspirational and motivational event it was. Especially for this city, my city,…
Read MoreParis was ambushed by seven separate terrorist actions last night, a horrific set of events eerily reminiscent of both the Charlie Hebdo massacre less than a year ago and the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Any one of them– the mass shootings in various restaurants and bars, the suicide bombing outside of a soccer match at the Stade de…
Read MoreYesterday, my good friend, fellow music-lover and ridiculously super-smart guy, Steven Thomas (Asst Professor of English and Director of Film and Media Minor, Wagner College), published on his blog a response to and critique of my post from a couple of days ago on the Thicke/Pharrell/Gaye lawsuit (“On Blurred Lines, Pop Music, Pirates/Thieves and Memphis’ Mustang Sally”). His…
Read MoreYesterday, a Los Angeles federal jury awarded $7.4 million to the family of late, great R&B singer Marvin Gaye for copyright infringement by contemporary pop-icons Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams. The jurors determined that Thicke’s 2013 chart-topper “Blurred Lines” copied elements of Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got to Give It Up.” Although they were instructed to consider only…
Read MoreJust a few months ago, in September, I somewhat unceremoniously celebrated my 8th year at the helm of this still-imperfect, though incrementally improving, work-in-progress blog. My first couple of years were an experiment, to be sure, but I found my stride here at RMWMTMBM around 2008 or so, and it’s been mostly gravy since. I’m…
Read MoreMuch to my own embarrassment, I’ve neglected to post here on the Steven Salaita controversy thus far, an affair with far-reaching implications not only for how we determine what constitutes both the civic and academic limits to the “right to free speech,” but also for a number of hiring-and-firing practices that are customary within the Academy but…
Read MoreDaniel Brunson (@danieljbrunson) asked me if I could figure out a way to connect (1) people who won’t be attending #SPEP14 but who are interested in hearing specific panels and (2) Tweeters who will be live-tweeting those same panels. I think something like a digital-philosophical “buddy system” is a great idea, especially for those unfortunate…
Read MoreOnce again this semester, I assigned short-film projects to the students in my Existentialism course. And once again, the products of that assignment (which I only just finished grading) were amazing. I’ve employed this assignment in select courses for the last several years and each year the students’ films have gotten more and more impressive. …
Read MoreLast week, my Philosophy and Film class took up the theme of “documentary truth.” In preparation for our Tuesday night seminar, students were required to choose one film from a list of documentaries (Grizzly Man, The Thin Blue Line, Night and Fog, Bowling for Columbine, Capturing the Friedmans, Man on Wire, Super Size Me, Ghosts…
Read MoreIt’s been a little while since the inhabitants of Facebookistan got all fired up about something– where are you now Kony2012?— so I was half-delighted and half-disheartened to see the newest brouhaha to hit the social media site, which I’m calling the Facebook Privacy Dis-Agreement (FPD). As these things tend to happen, FPD had been…
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