Author Archives: Timothy Burke

Putting Out Fire With Gasoline

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Timothy Burke

I appreciate what Sady Doyle is trying to do in this essay on humor, culture and politics. Primarily the essay is addressed to artists and performers (and their audiences) who object to what they perceive as “politically correct” censoriousness. (One … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Popular Culture | 5 Comments

Is There a Desert or a Garden Underneath the Kudzu of Nuance?

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Timothy Burke

I like this essay by Kieran Healy a lot, even though I am probably the kind of person who habitually calls for nuance. What this helps me to understand is what I am doing when I make that nearly instinctive … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Generalist's Work, Oh Not Again He's Going to Tell Us It's a Complex System | 1 Comment

Don’t Panic! Leave That to the Experts

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Timothy Burke

In many massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), players who are heavily invested in the game (sometimes just in terms of time, but occasionally both time and money) often group together in organized collaborations, usually called guilds. Guilds pool resources and … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 4 Comments

We Are Not Who We Will Become

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Timothy Burke

One of the things about the reaction to Allison Bechdel’s Fun Home by a small subset of incoming Duke undergraduates that is important to grasp is that I think it’s a deliberate–and possibly even coordinated–re-deployment of activism about the content … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Politics, Swarthmore | 10 Comments

Joke’s On You

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Timothy Burke

Here’s my contribution to the DONALD TRUMP HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE sweepstakes: Donald Trump is polling well for the same reason Bernie Sanders is polling well. Sort of. They’re not at all the same in the sociology of their attraction, … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 3 Comments

In Media Res

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Timothy Burke

Ta-Nehisi Coates tweets (approvingly, I think) that historians are “not the most hopeful bunch”. I’ve said as much myself. Among the many problems with David Armitage and Jo Guldi’s The History Manifesto is the authors’ belief that historians once had … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Politics | 2 Comments

Peforming the Role

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Timothy Burke

The short summary of the way that UIUC’s administrative and board leadership (and some of their closest faculty supporters) handled their reaction to Steven Salaita is that they screwed up and that serious professional consequences are completely appropriate. And not … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | 1 Comment

Yes, We Have “No Irish Need Apply”

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Timothy Burke

Just came across news of the publication of Rebecca Fried’s excellent article “No Irish Need Deny: Evidence for the Historicity of NINA Restrictions in Advertisements and Signs”, Journal of Social History, 10:1093, 2015, from @seth_denbo on Twitter. First, the background … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Oath for Experts, Production of History | 14 Comments

All Grasshoppers, No Ants

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Timothy Burke

It would be convenient to think that Gawker Media‘s flaming car-wreck failure at the end of last week was the kind of mistake of individual judgment that can be fixed by a few resignations, a few pledges to do better, … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Cleaning Out the Augean Stables, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Politics, Popular Culture | 8 Comments

The Production of Stigma

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Timothy Burke

Since Swarthmore seems likely to be stuck debating or struggling over divestment for at least another year or more, I remain interested in trying to push at the central weakness of the pro-divestment argument. The major argument of many divestment … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 3 Comments