So this year I taught the video games class again (300 students this time). Evaluations were ok… not as good as last time, and I think I know why. I basically did more of what some folks liked last time … Continue reading →

I will be giving talks (on worlds) in Dublin on May 11, and in Munich, probably May 23. Otherwise no conferences or talks planned for the Spring. I will not be attending the ACLA (in Utrecht) or the MSA (in … Continue reading →

Teaching two classes this semester, a graduate class on Derrida (syllabus) and the usual undergraduate class on video game culture (syllabus), this time with 400 students, a new record. I had planned to make a bunch of changes to the … Continue reading →

So one of the things I’ve been up to that I’m really excited about and proud of is Penn State’s new Center for Humanities and Information, which has just started up this year. The best thing (well, one of the … Continue reading →

I’ve been terrible about updating the site, but here’s a quick rundown of where I’ll be: Sept 18-19: U of Tampa (about literary worlds) Oct 2-3: Concordia University, Montreal (the new Kant book) Oct 22-23:  Norwich University, Vermont (talking about Elements) … Continue reading →

I actually spoke on this roundtable from a single page of notes, as is my preference; but then I typed up the notes for a friend and so here they are. I only spoke for 6 minutes so I’ve said … Continue reading →

For all I know this has been said before, but: the anthropocene is a world-concept. The normal way to understand the Anthropocene is as a historical period, defined more or less as the era when human beings acquire the capacity … Continue reading →

One of the things I want to do sometimes is to repost stuff from Printculture’s archives, because it tends to be hard to find. Here is a series of discussions on the topic of something I called “leverage,” by which … Continue reading →

Nice article from NY Mag on the psychological and physiological adjustments that come with having lost large amounts of weight. Cultural fantasies of weight loss present a tidy, attractive proposition – lose weight, gain self-acceptance – without addressing the whole … Continue reading →

So a few months ago I predicted that one day actors would be hired by firms like Coursera to teach MOOCs (because once you don’t have to respond to student questions live, who cares who reads from the script? Might … Continue reading →

…with lots of ideas about the future of online education. I suppose by “strange” I mean that his politics (if you look at his blog) operate from a position that imagines itself as entirely apolitical but is nonetheless quite interested … Continue reading →

At least according to this reading of a Chronicle story by Chris Newfield. Short version that both faculty and university presidents agree that MOOCs will have a negative impact on higher ed, and that this opinion is held by people … Continue reading →

… or at least thinking about it. Those of you who know me and my family know that our son, Jules, was born with a very rare genetic disability (known as 9p deletion syndrome). He’s fine, at least medically, though … Continue reading →

Some people think MOOCs are bad, some people think they’re good (though I know almost none of the latter). But what you really need to know is: what’s going to happen to the university in the next twenty years as … Continue reading →