I’m guessing that many of us have those fleeting fantasies from time to time in which we conjure up what we imagine would be the AWESOMEST. COURSE. EVER. For example, my fantasy courses: “I’m Not Here To Make Friends: Ethics and Reality TV” (sort of a cross between ethical theory, applied ethics, and existentialism), or…
Read MoreIn the Humanities, we like to emphasize the importance of what we call “close reading,” by which we mean concentrated attention to the details of a text: syntax, specialized vocabulary, nuance and conditions, logical order, the manner in which ideas develop and are connected. We do this because we aim to achieve, I hope, precision…
Read MoreThis week is Banned Books Week, so designated by the American Library Association, which created the week in the hopes of motivating us to celebrate our “freedom to read.” The ALA keeps a list of the most frequently challenged books each year, including a list of banned “classics,” and my guess is that a quick…
Read MoreI recently learned that my institution has signed up for Turnitin.com, an Internet “plagiarism-prevention” service that allows professors to submit students’ papers and checks them against other submissions to verify that they’ve not been copied. There’s no mandate at my institution yet (as far as I know) for faculty to participate, and so I plan…
Read MoreJust a reminder that the 5th round of NPR’s excellent writing contest for listeners, Three Minute Fiction, is currently underway. This round is hosted by Michael Cunningham (author of A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, Specimen Days and, perhaps most famously, The Hours) who will serve as one of the…
Read MoreI was at a dinner party recently with colleagues and, per usual, the conversation at some point turned to bemoaning students’ sometimes less-than-ideal language skills. The complaints were standard fare– what ever happened to proper grammar? to sophisticated and orderly essay construction? to close and careful reading skills? to the capacity for clearly translating ideas…
Read MoreGary Shteyngart’s new novel Super Sad True Love Story takes place in a not-too-distant future America that reads uncomfortably familiar and, consequently, entirely believable. There, America has suffered a sharp decline in global economic and political importance, and has refashioned itself as an almost unabashedly consumerist Security State– though the Horatio-Alger-esque resolve (and hubris) that…
Read MoreI’m working against some fast-approaching deadlines– also working in the midst of some please-ice-me-down-or-shoot-me-now heat indices here in Memphis– so all I can rustle up are a few truncated reflections on things that have piqued my interest of late. For those of you playing along at home, I’ve provided helpful and handy-dandy guides for filing…
Read MoreJust today, I posted a solicitation for book recommendations as my Facebook status. I asked for fiction recs– proscribing Stieg Larsson in advance — and almost immediately received a host of literary endorsements from my many bibliophile friends (and, a pleasant surprise, from my students as well). I was happy to see that most of…
Read MoreIf you’ve been stuck under a rock for the last couple of years, you may not be aware that vampires are all the rage right now. Since I’m not a huge fan of scary movies, scary monsters, or scary things in general, I’ve managed to sidestep any real exposure to the recent vampiremania, though a…
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