Author Archives: Timothy Burke

New President

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Timothy Burke

Swarthmore has a new President, Rebecca Chopp, currently the President of Colgate University. You can read a few comments by her on Swarthmore at the Daily Gazette. Also her initial remarks at a reception can be found on the college’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Swarthmore | Comments Off on New President

Engine and Caboose, On the Same Track

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Timothy Burke

David Brooks’ column today in the New York Times is a great example of his hackery. I suppose he irritates me even more than your average op-ed shill because he feints at having an interest in ideas and views that … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 5 Comments

Grades

Posted on February 19, 2009 by Timothy Burke

I find both of the poles in the current cross-blog discussion of grading policies a bit weird. There’s the people who say that a C is the average, and thus that should be reflected in the distribution of grades, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | 12 Comments

Textbook Costs

Posted on February 12, 2009 by Timothy Burke

Lots of cross-blog talk on this subject at the moment: why are textbooks so expensive? The answer is mostly that it’s a racket with some resemblance to some of the weird pricing that happens inside the health care system. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Intellectual Property | 11 Comments

Different Cliffs, Different Bottoms, Different Parachutes

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Timothy Burke

There is a kind of confusion that happens anytime there is a major historical conjuncture where histories of failure and crisis which have independent roots happen to coincide. Because they coincide, they become part of the same “event”, and by … Continue reading →

Posted in Consumerism, Advertising, Commodities | 16 Comments

Fish Food

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Timothy Burke

Let me add to the “Stanley Fish is just kind of pathetic” dogpile a bit here. In many ways, Fish’s latest column kind of reveals just how naked the emperor has become when it comes to hack complaints about the … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Blogging | 4 Comments

Book Notes: Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Timothy Burke

Before I launch into my more complicated reactions to some of the material in the book, I should be clear: this is a really good book (and Vanderbilt has a nice blog to go along with it). If you get … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | 4 Comments

The Star Wars of 3D?

Posted on February 9, 2009 by Timothy Burke

Ok, that’s a bit strong as a description of the film Coraline. But there were moments seeing it this weekend where I flashed back to that first viewing of Star Wars in 1977, to that moment where the Imperial Star … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular Culture | 5 Comments

The Embarassment of Paratext, the Insufficiency of Culture

Posted on February 8, 2009 by Timothy Burke

It’s a little thing, but let me make it into something slightly bigger. In the Sunday Week in Review section of the New York Times today, there’s a brief item about road signs warning of zombies ahead. The item mentions … Continue reading →

Posted in Information Technology and Information Literacy, Popular Culture, Production of History | 10 Comments

Book Notes: Alexandra Fuller, The Legend of Colton H. Bryant

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Timothy Burke

My students know that I really like the work of Alexandra Fuller about her childhood and later experiences in southern Africa. I appreciate her aggressively unsentimental vision. She doesn’t tell the usual story of rising to self-awareness, rejecting her society, … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Books, Politics | 1 Comment