I think one of the electrical circuits in the house is going, as lights have been browning out. This circuit appears to rule the living room, the hall and the air conditioning. Can I still use these things while they are partially functional, as they are now, or must I unplug everything until this wire … More Circuits, withal
Graduate students ought to be able to complete course work in two years, says the President of the MLA. From the BA, two years of coursework, then two of examination and thesis, and that is all. What do you think of this? Doesn’t it reduce the PhD to what the MA once was and still … More A Question on Russell Berman
After twenty years I have figured out of whom I could have asked the question I had. I really had not thought of it. I was very frustrated because I asked so many people whom I might ask, and none even recognized my question. But in at least some cases, it might have been that … More Que sais-je?
Some of my first Danish friends could never quite understand US politics because we do not have a parliamentary system. Why the President did not resign, why the government had not fallen, they would ask. Technically they knew the answers to these questions but they did not feel these answers. In the US some common … More Horizons of political understanding and expectation
After many years of struggle our problems were solved, not because we won at last but because an administration came in that had no interest in obstructing our work. In the meantime we worked on slow reforms and tried to follow the advice there is about how to rise above things. But the fact is … More Even more on academic advice
All right, I will say this and then finally go, it is almost 7:53 AM and I should have been in the office already. But I was thinking of how I would formulate something I want to discuss with an administrator and my thought stream had a byproduct: on European culture as a culture of … More An interesting button of thought
I do not “manage time” as well as I once did and it is because at a certain point, I realized it was not possible. I do not have the power to make the kinds of decisions I have been able to make on use of time I have had in other academic jobs I … More A Radical Thought on Time Management
Was J. Edgar Hoover Black? I hadn’t even known he was gay, but it seems that he was both gay and Black and was thus passing in two senses. Exactly how much worse would the Republicans do than this? * Over Thanksgiving I disagreed with a new arrival here on two topics: academia and Occupy. … More Encore des questions pour le dimanche
What is the mechanism whereby people cannot stand things? Two of my colleagues have complained so much this semester that I, pushed to the wall with exasperation, have told them they seem so miserable, they really ought to go on the market and see whether they can find situations that suit them better. Now at … More More on the mystery of Hispanic men
I think it was Marc Bosquet who pointed out that even if tenured faculty don’t work the way pretenured ones do, you have to consider that tenure is a sort of pension for people who before it, worked for the university for almost nothing during up to ten years of graduate school, and then for … More On retirement
coldhearted scientist وداد 