The True Born Englishman Thus from a mixture of all kinds began, That het’rogeneous thing, an Englishman: In eager rapes, and furious lust begot, Betwixt a painted Britain and a Scot. Whose gend’ring off-spring quickly learn’d to bow, And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough: From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came, With … More English mestizaje
True translation demands a return to the pre-verbal. One reads and rereads the words of the original text in order to penetrate through them to reach, to touch, the vision or experience that prompted them. One then gathers up what one has found there and takes this quivering almost wordless “thing” and places it behind … More John Berger on Translation
Here is a good, basic piece on the fantasy of the white race. The term Caucasian was created to trace the origin of “white” people to the Golden Age of Greece and the ancient Near East. These populations were not, of course, “white,” and this “Caucasian” race is an invention. Americans were strong and vital … More Hector de Crèvecoeur
When I have to give that pesky Spanish class again, I will have grades recorded all the time in a gradebook they can see electronically, with comments. Grade structure will be very easy to average at the end, because everything will be worth 10%. Four quizzes or tests taken online outside class time, that include … More Notes for next time
Vallejo first got to Paris in 1923, and I first got there in 1964. What we have in common is having seen it without the Montparnasse skyscraper. Now it is 2014 and I have celebrated the 50th anniversary of my transatlantic voyage, and more time separates me from it than does it from Vallejo’s arrival. … More
Another myth that you’ve identified in a recent piece of yours is the myth of the so-called “lazy mob.” We’ve heard numerous media refer to the Southern European peoples in particular as lazy, as unproductive and people who simply don’t work hard. What’s your response to these accusations? Well, first of all, what is this … More Sur la paresse
It was a beautiful winter day of the kind we can have here: weak sun, slight warmth, white sky. The night will be starry and cool. Axé.
La méditation de la semaine: trauma. You must not teach, you should not be research oriented; your choice of research field indicates that you are not qualified to be in any research field; you are unemployable and I am qualified to say that; you must do this project and only this project, our way and … More Cold vista
You should use section headings, I am told. Your entire manuscript is a set of five-page essays, divided into chapters that are subdivided into sections. Thinking from the ground up, that is a set of five-page essays. At one per week for 50 weeks that is five chapters of ten sections each, for example. This … More How to write books
What I want to say to someone who, when I said I had finished my essay in a triumphant six-hour final stretch, said I should not have written for that long and should have read Boice: I suppose that if you had a lot of free time in college and graduate school, and you had … More Another anti-Boicean post
coldhearted scientist وداد 