Two talks coming up at Penn: one, a second try at “Academic Writing, I Love You. Really, I Do,” this time with, lesson learned, purely extemporized (from notes) entractes (on Thursday Feb 21), and, on Friday, a roundtable and talk … Continue reading
An undergraduate course taught at Princeton in Spring 2013 on what happens to cosmology after modernity. Continue reading
Per Conor Friedersdorf, who is not my favorite political writer, but still: a list of 102 very good to excellent nonfiction pieces for the year. I’ll be reading through them when I can (though not this week!) but for now here’s … Continue reading
When I was younger I used to pass long car rides from home to college (7 hours, much of it on the PA turnpike) by doing two things (well, three if you count the constant masturbation, but who does?): narrating … Continue reading
From 50 Rhetorical Devices for Rational Writing (whatever that latter idea means), this delightful sample sentence in the definition of antanaclasis: Repetition of a word in a sentence in which a different meaning is applied each time: “If you aren’t fired … Continue reading
…to bring us to Milton Friedman’s promised land. I find the baby ads (from E-Trade) obnoxious, partly because they suggest (not despite but because of the humor) a kind of distant limit for the absolute financialization of everyday life, from … Continue reading
Apparently, by the way (according to a colleague who works in the field), they’re pronounced “mooks.” Which seems like a mistake. A good piece today in the IHE. First paragraph captures some of the difficulty I have with the concept … Continue reading
My first foray into tweener literary criticism has just been published by Public Books. Fun quote: What would it mean to recognize ourselves (again, the first person plural includes the Chinese) as people who want to know what China is, and who are … Continue reading
My first foray into tweener literary criticism has just been published by Public Books. I’ve also just accepted a request to write about Levi-Strauss for the LA Review of Books, due in early March. So the world has that to look forward … Continue reading
…but you don’t have to be a dick about it. (Though at times honestly it’s not clear whether the object of derision is the narrator or the people he describes; nonetheless, since it’s the Chronicle, which specializes in columns about academia … Continue reading
Well worth reading, here. Miller’s response here. Here is the thing: I’ve always liked Toby Miller, ever since he gave a talk when I was in grad school and bet that no one in the room had seen Demolition Man, … Continue reading
