Monthly Archives: October 2007

“A Blog Post”

Margaret Soltan has a nice post on the overuse of quotation marks, including a pointer to a website dedicated to stomping out this phenomenon. I wouldn’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, though. When I think about … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Miscellany | 6 Comments

On the Road

I’ll be in Washington DC tomorrow for a talk to alumni on virtual worlds. See you there, Swatties.

Posted in Games and Gaming, Swarthmore | 6 Comments

OCLC/RLG Programs Meeting Talk

I kept meaning to put this essay up over the summer, but I, uh, got distracted. Did I say that I wasn’t kidding about the title of this blog? Anyway, this is a talk I gave at the the Research … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Information Technology and Information Literacy | 9 Comments

The Benefits of Resentment and Cynicism

I really like this quote from Break Through at Kevin Drum’s site. So yet another book that I’d better read. Here’s the quote that Drum pulls out of Chapter 7 of the book: From Break Through, courtesy of Kevin Drum: … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Politics | 10 Comments

Domo Arigato Professor Roboto

Oh god, not “politics in the classroom” again. All I can tell you for sure after reading Paul Sracic’s essay is that the way he comes at this perennial issue is by advising professors to be boring, grey robots in … Continue reading

Posted in Academia | 4 Comments

Why You No Post (on Iraq)?

There was a quick comment in a discussion elsewhere that having concluded that there’s nothing really to discuss any more with defenders of the President’s Iraq policy, I now seem to have nothing to say about Iraq. E.g., that once … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 4 Comments

Third Way

One of the things that you face in college teaching is the question of when a student is entitled to say, “No mas!” and completely opt out of a major area of knowledge on the grounds that their mind simply … Continue reading

Posted in Academia | 20 Comments

Bump Off

So I’m driving home today to pick up lunch. We live about five minutes from campus by car. I turn onto the road before our street, which often gets a lot of traffic. A pickup truck comes up fast behind … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 20 Comments

Chronicle of Cancellations Foretold

Spurred by Jason Mittell (and just about every other television critic in existence) we watched Pushing Daisies last night. We, too, fell in love with it. My daughter was briefly upset at the way death entered the story, but the … Continue reading

Posted in Popular Culture | 2 Comments

That Which Is Discussable

I predictably say to both students and colleagues that the teaching of analytic writing in college should be preceded (and accompanied) by the teaching of persuasion as an art and a way of life. Waiting until you’re in the thick … Continue reading

Posted in Academia | 11 Comments