Category Archives: Swarthmore

An Actual Trolley Problem

I’ve always seen a certain style of thought experiment in analytic philosophy and psychology as having limited value–say for example the famous “trolley problem” that asks participants to make an ethical choice about whose life to save in a situation … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Grasping the Nettle, Politics, Swarthmore | 1 Comment

Dialogue and Demand

Why is a call for conversation or dialogue met so often with indifference or hostility? That I am thinking about this question might feel peculiar to Swarthmore, but I could just as readily be addressing Johns Hopkins (the scene of … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Swarthmore | 6 Comments

Save the Children

Jonathan Haidt is consistently unimpressive. Responding in this Chronicle piece about Jeffrey Adam Sachs’ great essay for the Niskanen Center, Haidt concedes that the speech-related episodes that he and his pals get so agitated about are confined to a relative … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Politics, Swarthmore | 1 Comment

A New Year

This is not the first time I’ve gone quiet on this blog simply because I was busy. Fall 2017 was in many ways the busiest semester I’ve ever had at Swarthmore: I taught two courses, I chaired my department, I … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Blogging, Politics, Swarthmore | 12 Comments

Slow Poisons

A prologue first to what I’m going to say about “academic bullying”. Considering that the word is used so broadly to discuss a wide range of procedures, practices, attitudes, and ideological positions, maybe we need a better term than “neoliberalism”. … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Swarthmore | 13 Comments

The Room Where It Happens

It would be in a way a comfort–and also a terror–to think, “Well, that’s those people, it’s the way they think, we cannot stop them and there is no way to engage them.” It’s true, there is no way to … Continue reading

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

The Vision Thing

We’re having a “visioning exercise” here at Swarthmore this fall. I couldn’t attend an early gathering for this purpose, and I’m teaching during the next one. This might be just as well, as I’m having to fight back a certain … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Oath for Experts, Swarthmore | 1 Comment

Dramatic Arc

Me at the beginning of a class meeting where I’ve assigned one of my favorite books. Me realizing that maybe a quarter of the class read it with any real attention despite the fact that I already said it’s going … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Swarthmore | 6 Comments

A Chance to Show Quality

Romantic ideals of originality still remain deeply embedded in how we recognize, cultivate and reward merit in most of our selective systems of education, reputation and employment. In particular we read for the signs of that kind of authentic individuality … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Swarthmore | 3 Comments

Technologies of the Cold War in Africa (History 90I) Syllabus

I saw last year that some smart academics were using Piktochart to design more graphical, visual syllabi, so I took a stab at it. Loading…

Posted in Academia, Africa, Swarthmore | Comments Off on Technologies of the Cold War in Africa (History 90I) Syllabus