Needing a break, even for a hardened historian
During spring break, I starting reading some books on the Spanish Civil War, and I’m finding it tough slogging: it’s not inherently hard reading, but it’s hard to read for long about a story that ends badly, where thousands of people lost their lives and a country turned into a dictatorship that lasted for decades. […]
New media and academe
A few somewhat-related ideas floating in my head this afternoon: The persistent value of blogging. While many others assert a professional value of Twitter and LinkedIn, and I am sure they can be used in that way, I will stick to blogging: it’s public, it captures thoughts that require more than 140 characters, and I […]
The world is slowing, I’m speeding up, or I have acquired a few afterburner kits
I am now far less behind than I was in early December. The next EPAA article (to be published April 10) is in the can; I have another 5 in various post-acceptance stages, a bunch of decisions to be written up from my scribbles and reviewer comments, a revision ready to read, grad-student manuscripts in […]
Michael Crow and Bernie Machen up the yin-yang
Monday’s New York Times story on Arizona State University stole my point earlier this month about the expenses of public research universities and the tension between undergraduate teaching and the building of a research infrastructure. Either that, or I was stating the obvious (I think I was stating the obvious). The Times quoted the ASU […]
Brutal rites of passage
The stories about the Dallas school “cage matches” between students is a sign that unprofessional and brutal treatment of children is possible whenever the adults lack a moral compass. This is something that could have happened 50 or 100 years ago, and it happened because some twisted people in charge thought that the best way […]