Author Archives: Timothy Burke

Pictures from an Institution 4 (Alumni)

Meeting with alumni doesn’t feel like work: sometimes it’s about seeing old friends, sometimes it’s more like meeting distant relatives that you’ve never seen before but with whom you share all sorts of surprising and subtle connections. Alumni who were … Continue reading

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Pictures from an Institution 3 (Committees)

It’s not that common to have committee meetings devoted to administrative business during the summer. Departments sometimes meet informally to plan or discuss an upcoming search, as ads and preparations for an academic job search generally have to be completed … Continue reading

Posted in Pictures from an Institution, Swarthmore | 3 Comments

Pictures from an Institution 2 (Grading)

Grading, finishing today after having eaten up most of Memorial Day. Just as well, I wasn’t about to try serious gardening in the heat. I’ve been slowly shifting over to paperless grading. I have enough of an attachment to marking … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Pictures from an Institution, Swarthmore | 2 Comments

Pictures from an Institution 1 (Graduation)

I’m going to do an academic’s year in pictures from now until next May. Not every day, but as many as I can do. Seems a better way to communicate about what goes into faculty life. So let’s start at … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Pictures from an Institution, Swarthmore | 3 Comments

When We Think We Lead We Are Most Led

I’ve been trying to think through why I’m bothered by the idea of cultivating “leadership” among our students as a possible area of intensified institutional focus. Partly I think this is a theme that virtually all highly selective colleges and … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Swarthmore | 11 Comments

Generalist’s Work, Day 5

My colleague Richard Eldridge has written intricately about “the persistence of romanticism”, and defended romanticism in literature and philosophy against some of the more common criticisms. In humanistic writing, I’m struck by the sometimes uncomfortable mixing of a romanticist vision … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Digital Humanities, Generalist's Work, Popular Culture | 2 Comments

The Return of the Phantom Time Menace

Read enough forum threads across a wide enough range of websites and you ought to become fairly expert in predicting the range and distribution of responses and even of anticipating where you’re likely to fall in that picture yourself, should … Continue reading

Posted in Digital Humanities, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Production of History | Comments Off on The Return of the Phantom Time Menace

A Generalist’s Work, Day 4

The concept of fieldwork fascinates me and vexes me all at once. I didn’t really grasp how much fieldwork outside of formal archives is a significant part of the study of modern African history until I was several years into … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Books, Generalist's Work | 2 Comments

A Word for the Experts

I frequently use this blog to talk about the limits and problems of academic expertise, so it’s about time that I give some attention to its continuing value and strength. The New York Times recently profiled David Barton, an amateur … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Politics | 2 Comments

A Generalist’s Work, Day 3

One of the big issues on my mind lately is my ability (and that of my colleagues) to imagine the world of work as our students will experience it. Most of us at Swarthmore know something about the range of … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Generalist's Work, Swarthmore | 1 Comment