Author Archives: Timothy Burke

Trouble in River City

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Timothy Burke

Let’s talk MOOCs, shall we? There’s evidence that one reason some members of the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia decided they had to abruptly remove their president is that she didn’t have enough naive, heedless enthusiasm for … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Information Technology and Information Literacy | 8 Comments

Go Big Or Don’t Go

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Timothy Burke

There are folks–oh, say, Matt Yglesias for example–who can’t seem to resist being prompted to rush to the spectator stands at Thunderdome when an academic department or discipline has been picked out by managerialist bean-counters as the esoteric waste of … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | 12 Comments

Would You Rather Be a Mule?

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Timothy Burke

I have a soft spot for the song “Swinging on a Star”, first sung by Bing Crosby in the 1944 film Going My Way. Crosby’s character, a sort of proto-Vatican II priest who ends up befriending a group of wayward … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | Comments Off on Would You Rather Be a Mule?

Pictures From an Institution 12 (Archives)

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Timothy Burke

Archival research is another of those jobs that some faculty do that isn’t particularly photogenic, like reading secondary literature or doing peer review. At least many scientists have a machine that goes ping or a cage full of fruit flies, … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Pictures from an Institution, Swarthmore | 1 Comment

No Fig Leaves

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Timothy Burke

Going to try and catch up on a lot of blogging today. I just had a horrible week-and-a-half cold that really sidelined me. —————– Let’s start with the University of Virginia controversy. After reading Siva Vaidhyanathan’s commentary in Slate, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | 6 Comments

From the Archives

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Timothy Burke

Working on a new project, first time I’ve been in a Presidential library archive (LBJ’s in this case). Always fun. Really fell in love with the summaries from weekly intelligence briefings on the Congo during the 1960s. Around 1964, they’re … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Production of History | 2 Comments

Discharging Responsibilities

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Timothy Burke

Luke Mogelson’s excellent New York Times Magazine profile of emergency medicine in Afghanistan is in some ways an exercise in indirection. At first, it looks like it’s going to be entirely an admiring profile of the admirable Italian NGO Emergency … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Politics | Comments Off on Discharging Responsibilities

Crashing the Pity Party

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Timothy Burke

If you’re genuinely interested in a critique of Black Studies (or similarly constructed interdisciplinary or identity-based programs of study), don’t give into the temptation of making a martyr out of a blogger whose real mistake was a lack of intellectual … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Africa, Politics | 10 Comments

Good

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Timothy Burke

Thank you to the Chronicle.

Posted in Academia | 2 Comments

One Eyeball More

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Timothy Burke

To Mark Bauerlein: 1. Bauerlein can’t even bring himself to say, “Hey, it’s not cool to attack dissertations you haven’t read in a field that you preemptively deem uninteresting about subjects that you aggressively maintain could never be of any … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | 2 Comments