Category Archives: Generalist’s Work

On Diamond (Not Again!)

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Timothy Burke

I don’t really mean to get drawn into recurrent arguments about Jared Diamond’s work, because my actual feelings about the actual books are rather mixed and indifferent. Guns, Germs and Steel reads well, it’s a useful teaching book for fueling … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Books, Cleaning Out the Augean Stables, Generalist's Work | 4 Comments

Moore’s Law (Munitions Edition)

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Timothy Burke

Let’s say twenty years ago I’d written a science fiction novel about how a futuristic nation has a massive force of flying robot bombs that are programmed with some target parameters and just fly around 24/7 on patrol looking for … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Generalist's Work, Politics | 21 Comments

Commentary on Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Timothy Burke

We had the first of four symposia on Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Righteous Mind last night at Swarthmore. The hope is that we can demonstrate the distinctive advantages that a “liberal arts” approach can yield when many different scholars … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Generalist's Work, Oh Not Again He's Going to Tell Us It's a Complex System, Politics, Swarthmore | 1 Comment

Debt: The First 500 Comments At Crooked Timber

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Timothy Burke

Some years ago, I was talking with a senior scholar that I had known well while I was in graduate school and in my early career. This person’s scholarly work is amazing stuff, a huge presence in African history, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Blogging, Generalist's Work, Oh Not Again He's Going to Tell Us It's a Complex System | 13 Comments

What’s Not in a Datamine

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Timothy Burke

I think that research that involves quantitative studies of extremely large datasets of texts that focuses on word usage, genre classification, spatial mapping of publication and circulation, or other kinds of information that we can now collect and analyze is … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Humanities, Generalist's Work, Oh Not Again He's Going to Tell Us It's a Complex System | 4 Comments

Some Weeds

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Timothy Burke

I got into an unedifying dispute some years ago about the term “Eurocentric”. Some conservative cultural critics seem to think that any mention of the term marks you off as a crazed member of Sendero Luminoso or some such. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Generalist's Work | Comments Off on Some Weeds

Generalist’s Work, Day 5

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Timothy Burke

My colleague Richard Eldridge has written intricately about “the persistence of romanticism”, and defended romanticism in literature and philosophy against some of the more common criticisms. In humanistic writing, I’m struck by the sometimes uncomfortable mixing of a romanticist vision … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Digital Humanities, Generalist's Work, Popular Culture | 2 Comments

A Generalist’s Work, Day 4

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Timothy Burke

The concept of fieldwork fascinates me and vexes me all at once. I didn’t really grasp how much fieldwork outside of formal archives is a significant part of the study of modern African history until I was several years into … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Books, Generalist's Work | 2 Comments

A Generalist’s Work, Day 3

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Timothy Burke

One of the big issues on my mind lately is my ability (and that of my colleagues) to imagine the world of work as our students will experience it. Most of us at Swarthmore know something about the range of … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Generalist's Work, Swarthmore | 1 Comment

A Generalist’s Work, Day 2

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Timothy Burke

Tom De Haven’s Our Hero: Superman on Earth was one of my accidental discoveries this semester, arising out of trying to help a student in my counterfactual history class with her really interesting project. I have a long-standing engagement with … Continue reading →

Posted in Generalist's Work, Popular Culture | 2 Comments