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Category Archives: Academia
Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade, Spring 2006
History 8a Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade Spring 2006 Professor Burke Swarthmore College This course is a survey of a broad era in African history, from around 1200 AD to 1850 or so, concentrating on the 17th … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Africa
2 Comments
Rome vs. Oyo
I’m really enjoying HBO’s series Rome. I gather BBC viewers have had a less detailed, more sex-focused version of the series to watch, which is a pity for them. What I’m enjoying in particular about the show is the meticulousness … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Africa
5 Comments
The Consequences of Representation
John Holbo was kind enough to pick up on my posting about tropes for my Image of Africa course this semester and add a new item, a really interesting one: the extent to which imaginative fictions feel comfortable inventing countries, … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Africa, Popular Culture
8 Comments
Ethical Intelligence
Swarthmore’s president, Alfred Bloom, talks a great deal about “ethical intelligence” as perhaps the central outcome he’d like to see produced by a Swarthmore education. I like the phrase and I like the concept and I agree with his view … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
9 Comments
The Course That Never Was
For the first time in eleven years, a class of mine hasn’t filled enough to be worth teaching: I only had two students sign up for it. I’ve had a few other small courses from time to time, but I … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Africa
11 Comments
Collective Expertise and Source Authority
Via BoingBoing, this discussion of a mysterious technological object purchased by Todd Lappin. I went to a meeting on teaching technological literacy, especially information technology literacy, in liberal arts curricula last weekend, and I’ll probably write more about that meeting … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Blogging
9 Comments
Knowing
Juan Cole spoke here last night, courtesy of War News Radio, and I was fortunate enough to have dinner with him as well. I thought his talk was terrifically clear, informative and useful, basically a great demonstration of what a … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Blogging
5 Comments
Could College Be Cheaper?
Like Fontana Labs, I’ve long fretted that some day, all at once, in a tipping point reaction, both employers and families are going to decide in two different directions that expensive college degrees no longer predict success strongly and are … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
18 Comments
Tenure
I’m with Brad DeLong: John Tierney’s column on cronyism and academia is an especially annoying case of the lack-of-pluralism-in-academia argument. It is a lazy conflation of two completely different issues. I’m perfectly willing to agree that there is a problem … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
5 Comments
Serious Fun
Though it put me into a serious week-long hustle to catch up on all sorts of work (hence the paucity of entries here lately), Edward Castronova’s Ludium conference at Indiana University’s Center for the Study of Synthetic Worlds was easily … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Games and Gaming
9 Comments