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Author Archives: Timothy Burke
Unmaskings
One of the interesting things about the most successful super-hero films to date is the relative extent to which they discard the convention of the secret identity while trying still to play with the fetishistic character of masks and costumes. … Continue reading
Posted in Popular Culture
14 Comments
Middlebrow Video Game Criticism
Unfogged links to a Chuck Klosterman essay in which he asks why there isn’t more mainstream video game criticism in various newspapers and magazines. I’ve thought about this issue myself. There’s a huge difference between what a magazine like Entertainment … Continue reading
Posted in Games and Gaming, Popular Culture
9 Comments
Rentiers of Sovereignty
I’ve had to deal with a situation this week that involves some complicated transactions over the title to a used car, on behalf of someone else. The mechanisms of title transfer are a hassle, but I’m also largely glad that … Continue reading
Posted in Africa, Politics
13 Comments
Live the Future You Want
I’m not especially fair-minded by nature. I have to struggle against temper, a quick tongue, an instinct to mock. Some of the long-windedness here is my way of guarding against those inclinations, getting myself to inhabit the obligations I’ve set … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Uncategorized
8 Comments
Twenty Years
Off to celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary. You can overlook in the day-in, day-out hustle of life what a mighty and lasting thing you’re building with someone and then wake up one day breathlessly startled at the cumulation of your … Continue reading
Posted in Domestic Life
9 Comments
“Many” Is a Numbered Word and Other Miscellaneous Replies
Part II of further thoughts on teaching, politicization and the like, this time in reply to the defenders of ACTA’s report. 1) Erin O’Connor, writing at ACTA’s blog, offers a useful reconceptualization of the ACTA report’s claims. O’Connor writes that … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
10 Comments
Some Teaching I Have Known
Part I of some further thoughts on academia, teaching and politicization. Undefined complaints about inappropriately “political” teaching worry me for the same reason that speech codes worry me. They worry me the same way that a draft policy on sexual … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
16 Comments
History 63: The Whole Enchilada
I offer this syllabus from Fall 2003 in contrast to Duke’s History 75. Would I get caught in ACTA’s net if they scanned through the catalog and noticed this course? There are Marxists abounding in this syllabus. A Muslim, too! … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
22 Comments
ACTA Report, “How Many Ward Churchills?”
Are you interested in defending academic standards? Let me tell you what I consider to be a few important academic standards. These apply across the disciplines. 1. Careful collection of evidence. 2. Constraining claims or arguments to the evidence available. … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
71 Comments
Online Syllabi
If you’ve been following news of ACTA’s imminent release of a report opportunistically entitled How Many Ward Churchills?, and you’ve looked at the comments thread, you can tell I’m finding the early excerpts irritating. I’m waiting for the full report … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
3 Comments