Category Archives: Academia

Brinkmanship

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Timothy Burke

Victor Ferrall’s short overview of the circumstances facing small liberal-arts colleges (SLACs) in the United States is an interesting read for anyone who works for such an institution and for any student past or present. Ferrall’s the former president of … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Swarthmore | 3 Comments

On Not Going Back to School

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Timothy Burke

I think I’ll toss in a bit for Kio Stark’s Kickstarter project Don’t Go Back to School, that aims to be a how-to guide for independent learning. What Stark is planning to argue (and enable) connects to one of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | 13 Comments

The Movement of Students

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Timothy Burke

For various reasons, I’ve found myself this semester talking with colleagues about the migration of students through our curriculum: the courses where they busily cluster, the lonely cobwebbed courses, the majors and courses that follow regular oscillating cycles of interest. … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Swarthmore | 8 Comments

Lead On

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Timothy Burke

Princeton University restrains its faculty from giving away copyright on journal articles to academic publishers.

Posted in Academia, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Intellectual Property | 4 Comments

Working Through

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Timothy Burke

Though I felt sympathy for Joyce Goldberg’s feelings that she could no longer teach military history to students whose primary interest in the material was therapeutic, I ultimately thought she was reproducing a binary opposition that will have increasingly dire … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | 2 Comments

Digital Calluses and Tender Hands

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Timothy Burke

J.J. Cohen’s reflection “The Darker Side of Blogging” is a very interesting read in many respects. I could certainly write an account of my experiences as an academic blogger that echo some of Cohen’s experiences, including the negative ones. What … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Blogging | 1 Comment

Pictures From an Institution 8 (First Day)

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Timothy Burke

We’re actually a whole week into the semester now, including Labor Day, which is not a holiday at Swarthmore. The first day of classes is always a bit of a puzzle for me as a teacher. There are obvious things … Continue reading →

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

What Meets in Vegas, Stays in Vegas

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Timothy Burke

I wouldn’t quite say I was surprised at this report of unrest within the American Sociological Association over the choice of Las Vegas as the location for the 2011 meeting. And I’m fairly certain that some of the more extreme … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Consumerism, Advertising, Commodities, Good Quote, Bad Quote, Popular Culture | 6 Comments

On “Stop Doing Cultural Studies”

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Timothy Burke

A quick follow-up to yesterday’s post. Reading Toni Bowers’ excellent post about a panel at the American Society for 18th-Century Studies in which Cliff Siskin and Bill Warner called for scholars of literary studies to “stop doing cultural studies”, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | 1 Comment

Hunger Artists (TIAA-Cref Edition)

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Timothy Burke

In the last few years, I’ve had a few conversations with colleagues here and elsewhere in which they insist that good humanistic inquiry is necessarily defined by its fundamental aversion to instrumental justifications of its own work and that teaching … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | 1 Comment