Category Archives: Academia

Cost Control Is a Progressive Value

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Timothy Burke

If you are a long-time reader of this increasingly intermittent blog, you know I have some recurrent frustrations and fascinations that I return to again and again. Sometimes in fact the blog is intermittent because I am afraid I am … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Politics | 2 Comments

A Chance to Show Quality

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Timothy Burke

Romantic ideals of originality still remain deeply embedded in how we recognize, cultivate and reward merit in most of our selective systems of education, reputation and employment. In particular we read for the signs of that kind of authentic individuality … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Swarthmore | 3 Comments

On Uagadou, the African Wizarding School

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Timothy Burke

I have a good deal to say on the plausibility of a wizarding school in J.K. Rowling’s fantasy world, and the first would be that I should know better than to send Twitter to do a blog’s job, I guess. … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Africa, Sheer Raw Geekery | 10 Comments

On the Deleting of Academia.edu and Other Sundry Affairs

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Timothy Burke

Once again with feeling, a point that I think cannot be made often enough. Social media created and operated by a for-profit company, no matter what it says when it starts off about the rights of content creators, will inevitably … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Intellectual Property | 2 Comments

Technologies of the Cold War in Africa (History 90I) Syllabus

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Timothy Burke

I saw last year that some smart academics were using Piktochart to design more graphical, visual syllabi, so I took a stab at it. Loading…

Posted in Academia, Africa, Swarthmore | Comments Off

“Dates Back Millennia”

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Timothy Burke

You know, I have less of an unqualified hatred for the “dates back millennia” line than I used to. I’m thinking this as I see my feed fill up with friends and colleagues complaining about Obama’s use of it in … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Politics, Production of History | Comments Off

All Saints Day

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Timothy Burke

Commenting on the debate over Halloween costumes seems freshly risky this week, but the subject has been on my mind since I read this New York Times article on the subject on October 30. My first thought would be that … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Popular Culture, Production of History, Swarthmore | 17 Comments

Inchworm

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Timothy Burke

Over the last decade, I’ve found my institutional work as a faculty member squeezed into a kind of pressure gradient. On one side, our administration has been requesting or requiring more and more data, reporting and procedures that are either … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Defining "Liberal Arts", Oh Not Again He's Going to Tell Us It's a Complex System, Swarthmore | 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

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