I’ve mentioned my fascination with medical mysteries before on this blog (see: my post on Apotemnophilia). I suppose that part of that fascination is simply grounded in the strangeness of some of the conditions, but I am also particularly interested in the way that medical knowledge is stymied. A couple of years ago, I read…
Read MoreAnyone remember the “culture wars”? Now that we’ve got all this change we can believe in, people don’t talk about them very much anymore, but the battle is far from over. One of the leading soldiers on the conservative side for years has been David Horowitz, who has a blog here and a “Freedom Center”…
Read MoreAs President George W. Bush’s time draws to a close, he will be spending some of his time (while he’s not dodging size 10’s, that is) deciding how to exercise his right to extend pardons and commutations. Just this past Friday, Bush awarded federal forgiveness to 17 “minor” criminals, 16 of which were pardons and…
Read MoreAs promised in my earlier post on this topic (which you can read at Blogging in the Classroom, originally posted in September), I’m back to report on my pedagogical experiment with blogging this semester. You can go back and read the earlier post if you want to know my justifications for trying this, so I…
Read MoreA mere 37 days before leaving office, our Lame-Duck-in-Chief President Bush was all the news yesterday. During a press conference in Baghdad with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, a Shiite Iraqi journalist (Muntadar al-Zeidi) stood up and threw one of his shoes– and then the other– at President Bush’s head, missing Bush by a hair…
Read MoreWhile just about everyone else is full of yuletide joy, this is a dreaded time of year for philosophers. It’s Job M**ket time. (The very word conveys so much Sturm und Drang that it feels like a profanity.) I imagine that this year is even more ulcer-inducing than years past because of the depressed economy…
Read MoreMany of you probably read Daniel Drezner’s recent Chronicle of Higher Education article about the decline of public intellectuals (“Public Intellectual 2.0”), in which Drezner wants to contest the presumed Götterdämmerung that many–like Francis Fukuyama, Russell Jacoby and Daniel Bell— believe began in the 1950’s and has yet to abate. Specifically, Drezner takes to task…
Read MoreNovelist, 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…
Read MoreThis 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…
Read MoreI’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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