June 2010
art of letters →
WPA posters, via Typography.com.
Peak Book →
Will Self:
The above leads me to suspect that we indeed may have passed that numinous — but for all that, real — point known as “peak book”. Might this mean that the ever-expanding and…
creation and consumption →
From Megan Garber’s largely positive, thoughtful review of Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus:
But the problem with TV, in this framing, is its very teeveeness; the villain is the medium itself. The…
too much research →
I couldn’t agree more with this call to reduce the amount of published academic research. Too much of what is published is of poor quality, and most published research is ignored by the scholars’…
The Long Ships →
Oh, how I love commendations of neglected or forgotten books. Michael Chabon beautifully praises one called The Long Ships. Whose fault is it that this book is unknown?
The fault, therefore,…
'nuff said →
catacombs →
“A spotlight illuminates the icon of the Apostle John discovered with other paintings in a catacomb located under a modern office building in a residential neighborhood of Rome,…
paywalls vs. ? →
Jeff Jarvis is contemptuous of Rupert Murdoch’s decision to charge for online access to his newspapers and magazines. I that it’s hard to imagine paywalls working, but what should Murdoch do?…
this is dialogue? →
library ad infinitum:
Putting The Shallows into dialogue with Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus, the latter book seems like the one with an actual idea. However smartly dressed, Carr’s concern about…
bodies and minds →
Really interesting brief essay by Linda Stone:
In our current relationship with technology, we bring our bodies, but our minds rule. “Don’t stop now, you’re on a roll. Yes, pick up that phone…
the writer who forgot how to read →
once more without much feeling →
I think I may have said all I have to say about e-readers, at least until the technology changes significantly. I’ve written a good deal about their benefits and their limitations, and I think I’ve…
re-evaluating →
Ross Douthat disagrees with Stanley Fish and me, but the article AKMA linked to in his comment on my first Fish post suggests that the data may be on our side:
Professors rated highly by…
Fish follow-up →
A generally thoughtful piece by Mark Bousquet, with some valuable considerations of the various ways — legitimate and not-so-legitimate — that teachers can get their students to rate them more…
Stanley Fish is right again →
In a follow-up to his earlier post about his gratitude for high-school education:
A number of responses to my column about the education I received at Classical High (a public school in…
the uses of books →
Via Lux Mentis.
a note about comments →
Gentle readers, I am thankful for the thoughtfulness of the commenters on this blog. I learn from y’all, and even when I disagree my thinking is often sharpened and clarified. I think I have an…
Market Day →
To me, James Sturm’s Market Day provides a far more compelling visual world than David Small’s Stitches. It is beautiful and memorable. But even so, the story leaves something to be…
Stitches →
Text people — my tribe — tend not to get graphic stories. Or we struggle to get them. We zip through a whole book in less than an hour and feel cheated. “This could have been…
quantity and quality revisited →
It would seem that Steven Johnson isn’t the only advocate of the quantity-trumps-quality defense of online life. The other day I mentioned Cory Doctorow’s praise for Clay Shirky’s new book, but Jonah Lehrer has a different and considerably more skeptical take
Steven Johnson's numbers game →
Unfortunately, Steven Johnson, once one of the sharpest cultural commentators around, seems to be turning into a caricature. His recent response to the concerns about digital life articulated by…
these days →
Tom Bisell, from his book Extra Lives, an extended defense of the art of the video game and the value of spending large chunks of your life playing them:
Once upon a time, I wrote in the…
nobody does it better than A. O. Scott →
A. O. Scott on Toy Story 3:
Perhaps no series of movies has so brilliantly grasped the emotional logic that binds the innate creativity of children at play to the machinery of mass…
revisiting Barsetshire (2) →
The second major impression that strikes me, on this re-reading, is Trollope’s almost metafictional refusal to play some of the typical games of the novelist. A great example comes in Barchester…
today lolcats, tomorrow the world →
Cory Doctorow on Clay Shirky’s new book:
Shirky is very good on the connection between trivial entertainments and serious business, from writing web-servers to changing government. Lolcats…
revisiting Barsetshire →
It’s been ten years or more since I read Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire novels, and I am returning to them now with great delight. I have now re-read the first four, and will probably move along…
the moral lives of emergent adults →
I seem to be in an academic-pedagogical vein these days, and while I’ll shift from that tomorrow, let me go at it one more time… .
Some people have an inexhaustible appetite for the…
evaluating the humanities →
Here, in a nutshell, is the insoluble probleem with “the humanities” in the academy, by which I mean most people in English departments and a good many people in history, Continental philosophy, art…
previous post, continued →
From the Washington Post:
Increasingly, though, another view is emerging: that the money schools spend on instructional gizmos isn’t necessarily making things better, just different. Many…
the teacher's dilemma →
No thinking person can simply be for or against digital technology. You have to be able to use your critical faculties and evaluate any particular technology in an independent way, trying to…
the humanities: once more with vagueness →
James Mulholland, an English professor at the Wheaton College that Ann Curry confuses with mine, writes about the future of the humanities:
We could think of humanities centers as the beginning…
re-enactment →
Here, via Kottke. Too awesome.
writing, silence, and privacy →
From a brilliant essay by Jed Perl:
Writing, before it is anything else, is a way of clarifying one’s thoughts. This is obviously true of forms such as the diary, which are inherently solitary….
Hypatia and the Great Library →
David Bentley Hart is doing his best to replace some long-told lies with some approximation of the truth. Well, we all know how that kind of thing works out.
Mark Twain, from his great address
academic, interviewed →
By Conor Friedorsdorf at his new Ideas blog for the Atlantic. Familiar stuff to regular readers of this blog.
history men →
I have mentioned elsewhere that the best work of history I have read in a long, long time is Keith Thomas’s The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfillment in Early Modern England.
But if it weren’t for…
back in the day →
Stanley Fish:
I wore my high school ring for more than 40 years. It became black and misshapen and I finally took it off. But now I have a new one, courtesy of the organizing committee of my…
every day in every way. . . →
Jonah Lehrer:
There is little doubt that the Internet is changing our brain. Everything changes our brain. What Carr neglects to mention, however, is that the preponderance of scientific…
me and the Beast →
I’m still thinking about my future with or without Google, so don’t jump to any conclusions if you see me wearing this. It doesn’t mean a thing. Really.
more from Nick Carr →
Are Google Maps and GPS bad for our brains?:
Véronique Bohbot, a professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal, has done extensive research demonstrating the connection between the…
BOOK EXPO AMERICA LUNCHEON TALK →
William Gibson:
Alvin Toffler warned us about Future Shock, but is this Future Fatigue? For the past decade or so, the only critics of science fiction I pay any attention to, all three of them,…
O'Connor investigated →
Over at University Diaries, I am having a debate with Margaret Soltan about Flannery O’Connor. Come join the fun.
the book of books →
(here)
The Death and Life of the Book Review →
The Death and Life of the Book Review:
In 1999 Steve Wasserman was three years into his tenure as the editor of The Los Angeles Times Book Review, and that July he published a review of…
the patron saint of modern reading →
This week I’ve spent some time thinking and writing about John Self, the protagonist of Martin Amis’s 1984 novel Money. Self is not what you’d call a reader. He may be living in the pre-internet…
Carr talk →
At the Technology Liberation Front, Adam Thierer has a long, detailed, and helpful review of Nick Carr’s The Shallows.
Meanwhile, Mr. Carr himself is pursuing a strategy of delinkification,…
oppose it, I say! →
Story here.
thesis for disputation →
“Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such…
Leopard Skin Chief at Oxford →
My friend and colleague Tim Larsen on A History of Oxford Anthropology:
The tone is set in a preface in which the argument is advanced that Oxford was able to lead the field because its…
confusion reigns →
Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen see user-interaction chaos in new gestural devices:
In Apple Mail, to delete an unread item, swipe right across the unopened mail and a dialog appears, allowing you…
