Category Archives: Academia

Oh god, not “politics in the classroom” again. All I can tell you for sure after reading Paul Sracic’s essay is that the way he comes at this perennial issue is by advising professors to be boring, grey robots in … Continue reading →

One of the things that you face in college teaching is the question of when a student is entitled to say, “No mas!” and completely opt out of a major area of knowledge on the grounds that their mind simply … Continue reading →

I predictably say to both students and colleagues that the teaching of analytic writing in college should be preceded (and accompanied) by the teaching of persuasion as an art and a way of life. Waiting until you’re in the thick … Continue reading →

I was asked about my view that academic freedom is a precondition of academic productivity in the comments on an earlier thread. Here’s the Minnesota Review essay where I lay that argument out in some detail. A lot of it … Continue reading →

I was just marking a student paper last night where I suggested that she avoid the use of complimentary modifiers like, “As Author X so incisively claims…” or “Author Y makes the particularly brilliant suggestion that…”. I realized that I … Continue reading →

Jon Cogburn’s description of the academic job-hunting process in philosophy is vivid. I suspect philosophy is a bit worse off in the ways he describes, but a lot of what is hateful in the process holds pretty true in history … Continue reading →

So you spend some time trying to offer a qualified defense of academia, and then you come across something like professors at UC Davis proclaiming that Lawrence Summers is so utterly beyond the pale that he shouldn’t be asked to … Continue reading →

I agree that academic prose is sometimes both boring and frustrating because of the extent to which academics overqualify and parse every substantive claim they are making. It can lead to endless thickets of dependent clauses designed to cover all … Continue reading →

Speaking of reasons that maybe some people occasionally dislike academics, I found myself nearly unable to restrain my pedantry last night at my daughter’s back-to-school meeting. The school theme for the year is “medieval times”. Cool, that’s fun, good idea. … Continue reading →

I’m an enthusiastic supporter of increased transparency in most cultural and political institutions. In the case of academia, for example, I think a commitment to transparency should include public circulation of all syllabi and the disclosure of a wide range … Continue reading →