Author Archives: Timothy Burke

The Africa Beat

Posted on December 20, 2005 by Timothy Burke

Hardly anybody likes the mass media. Everybody likes to beat up on them, use them as an alibi for their own intellectual or political shortcomings. Academics have a particular form of that aversion: journalism appears to many of them relentlessly … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa | 4 Comments

Pop Culture Roundup

Posted on December 19, 2005 by Timothy Burke

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the film itself. I was a bit surprised: the movie felt oddly flat. Perhaps because it suffered from the same problem that the first two Harry Potter films had, an overly literal approach … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular Culture | 4 Comments

Was That So Hard?

Posted on December 15, 2005 by Timothy Burke

I haven’t written about Iraq for a while, largely because I came to the conclusion that there were no remaining contingent pathways left: things were going to turn out however they were going to turn out. I especially came to … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 5 Comments

Unbelief and Imagination

Posted on December 8, 2005 by Timothy Burke

So The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has arrived, and in its wake, much as I would have expected, a fairly vigorous undercurrent of debate about C.S. Lewis and Christianity, both on weblogs and elsewhere. So far the smartest … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | 31 Comments

Ethical Intelligence

Posted on December 1, 2005 by Timothy Burke

Swarthmore’s president, Alfred Bloom, talks a great deal about “ethical intelligence” as perhaps the central outcome he’d like to see produced by a Swarthmore education. I like the phrase and I like the concept and I agree with his view … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | 9 Comments

The Course That Never Was

Posted on November 28, 2005 by Timothy Burke

For the first time in eleven years, a class of mine hasn’t filled enough to be worth teaching: I only had two students sign up for it. I’ve had a few other small courses from time to time, but I … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Africa | 11 Comments

Cry Baby

Posted on November 16, 2005 by Timothy Burke

I was sort of astonished to read in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal that Richard Ferber is coming out with a new edition of his book on infant sleep in which he says that “letting children cry ‘was not meant to … Continue reading →

Posted in Domestic Life | 16 Comments

Boycott’s On

Posted on November 16, 2005 by Timothy Burke

I began this blog three years ago in November. One of the earliest things I wrote about was Sony’s internal conflict between its content-producing divisions and its hardware-producing divisions. I like Sony hardware, by and large. However, I’ve decided that … Continue reading →

Posted in Miscellany | 7 Comments

Last Stop on the Meme Train

Posted on November 16, 2005 by Timothy Burke

Chris Clarke inflicted this on me a while back and now I finally tackle it. 1. Of all the books that you have eventually finished after many starts & stops, which one took you the longest and how long did … Continue reading →

Posted in Miscellany | 3 Comments

Book Notes: Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight

Posted on November 14, 2005 by Timothy Burke

Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight has been met with justified acclaim. I use this book in my courses quite a bit, and now I’ve suggested it to some Swarthmore alumni reading groups (whose members would be … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Books | 5 Comments