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Author Archives: Timothy Burke
The Potential Condescension of “Informed Consent”
Many years ago, I was involved in judging an interdisciplinary grant competition. At one point, there was an intense discussion about a proposal where part of the research involved ethnographic research that concerned illegal activity in a developing country. We … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Africa, Oath for Experts
1 Comment
Feeling For You
Just about every day, my social media feeds surge at some point with anger at judgmental comments, sometimes specific comments by a public figure, sometimes collections or assemblies of common forms of implied or ‘polite’ judgmental remarks directed at entire … Continue reading
The Listicle as Course Design
I’ve been convinced for a while that one of the best defenses of small classes and face-to-face pedagogy within a liberal arts education would be to make the process of that kind of teaching and coursework more visible to anyone … Continue reading
On The Invisible Bridge
I’ve been following some of the discussion about Rick Perlstein’s new book on the 1970s. I agree with many scholars that the basic problem with online endnotes is the persistent danger of the main text and the sourcing becoming disconnected … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Production of History
Comments Off on On The Invisible Bridge
Playing the Odds
The idea that higher education makes you a better person in some respect has long been its soft underbelly. The proposition makes most current faculty and administrators uncomfortable, especially at the smaller teaching-centered colleges that are prone to invoke tropes … Continue reading
It Is Better to Have Wanted and Lost Than Never to Have Wanted At All
Kickstarter is, not at all on purpose, saying some interesting things about this moment in the history of capitalism and about this moment in terms of the availability of disposable income. About capitalism, I think this: people will give to … Continue reading
Subtraction Stew
If the greatest trick the Devil ever played was convincing people he didn’t exist, the greatest trick of a certain kind of neoliberalism has been to convince people that in all circumstances and times we live in the shadow of … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Politics, Swarthmore
1 Comment
King of Pain
As Jackson Lears and many other scholars and observers have noted, many Americans throughout the cultural history of the United States have accepted that the circumstances of life are inevitably determined by luck, that economic life is a matter of … Continue reading
Posted in Africa, Miscellany, Politics
9 Comments
Fighting Words
Days pass, and issues go by, and increasingly by the time I’ve thought something through for myself, the online conversation, if that’s the right word for it, has moved on. One exchange that keeps sticking with me is about the … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Digital Humanities, Generalist's Work
4 Comments
Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax–and Commencement Speakers
I found myself really annoyed in the last week when I came across the many cases of faculty approvingly endorsing the fate of commencement speakers like Robert Birgeneau and Christine Lagarde, and scolding William Bowen for scolding students for their … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Politics
16 Comments