This is another installment in my series of reviews of Black Mirror. These posts DO include spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know! [Note from Dr. J: What follows is Part 2 of a two-part guest post from Jeffrey Gower. You can read Part One here.] Near the end of “White Bear,” as Victoria sits bound to a…
Read MoreSince I posted my list of tech book recommendations a few weeks ago, several people have asked me to explain why I describe myself as a “techno-optimist.” I get this question a lot, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to give a quick account (and defense) of my position. But, first, a few preliminary remarks about…
Read MoreRecently, I took part in an excellent interdisciplinary symposium (hosted by Ted George and Kristi Sweet of the Texas A&M Philosophy Department) focused on “Hermeneutics, the Humanities, and the Future of Interpretation.” All of the presentations were great, but the one that has stuck in my craw, and which I suspect I will not be able to pry loose for quite some…
Read MoreThis is a follow-up to my post last May, in which I explained a new pedagogical device I planned to introduce in my classes this semester. I called it “An Experiment in the Redistribution of Grades” and, as of two weeks ago, the experiment has begun. The basic idea is that I am giving students an opportunity to…
Read MoreThere’s an old dad-joke that goes something like this: A bear jumps out of the woods, in a rage, and starts chasing two hikers. They both start running for their lives, but then one of them stops to put on his running shoes. “What are you doing?!,” the other hiker exclaims, “You can’t outrun a…
Read MoreI had intended to write a really uplifting post today about the power of hope. Something about not giving in to the siren call of despondency or, worse, quietism. Something about the curious capacity of the human spirit to not only endure the darkness before the dawn, but to manufacture assurance that the sun will,…
Read MoreFor a long time now, I have kept a running list of “Songs That I Would Cut Off A Limb To Have Written.” It’s not a super-long list because my standards are high, but I certainly do not have enough limbs to cover it. Most of the time, I find that it’s the lyrics of…
Read MoreWARNING: If you still believe that academia is a meritocracy, that higher ed assessment instruments are useful (or unbiased), that grades motivate students to learn, or that grades accurately reflect students’ performance, this essay is not for you. Now, let’s talk about grades. No matter how fastidious one is about one’s course design, every prof…
Read MoreI live in Memphis, so summertime makes me think of heat. Hot heat. Sticky heat. Unrelenting heat. Oppressive heat. The kind of heat that you can’t escape and you can’t recover from, despite the fact that you spend most of your time between May and September mad-dashing from one air-conditioned place to another air-conditioned place….
Read MoreYou know what I’d rather forget? Donald Trump. I’d like to forget that he currently sits in the Oval Office, guzzling Diet Cokes, downing McDonalds cheeseburgers, drooling over Fox & Friends, and firing off barely-literate tweets. I’d like to forget the circus he manufactured leading up to his 2016 election, and the dumpster fire he’s…
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