At many American colleges and universities, the athletic program is something like a machine that runs unto itself – parochial and inward looking, defensive, and quite separate from the academic program. While athletics support a residential learning experience, the number of student athletes contributing to a balanced admissions class, the win/loss record, and the ability…
As the snow piles up and the Arctic Vortex descends on most of the continental United States, we can probably all use something heart-warming to read. Jerry Coleman passed away today at age 89. He may not be a household name nationally, but elderly and diehard Yankees fans will remember him as a solid second-baseman…
As writing in the twenty-first century increasingly takes place in digital spaces, where keystrokes are seamlessly translated into oceans of bytes, Writing Studies finds itself with a vast resource of data not previously imagined, explored, or applied: Big Data. As an open and informal round-table style event founded in curiosity, we would like to invite…
North Carolina (my home state, though only in my heart today) has a government that brooks no opposition, one whose political leaders are themselves led by the exceedingly rich Art Pope (creator of the Civitas Institute and state Budget Director). Through this Institute, Pope (though not directly: he no longer runs the institute) tries to…
How ancestry defines identity and what it means to be American are two inextricably linked and fundamental questions for most Americans. By extension, they have become the focal concerns of many academics across a number of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. We think of those issues as especially pressing and complex for immigrants…
The ASA resolution denouncing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has provoked a great deal of discussion. I think that it may be beneficial to delineate some of the conclusions that might be drawn from that discussion. Some of the discussion has been very beneficial because it is focusing attention in a much-needed way on the…
I’m starting to think that the American Studies Association has become the Emmanuel Goldstein of our times, the mythical object of the daily two minutes of hate in the novel 1984. The outpouring of denunciations against the ASA, and calls for their suppression for daring to embrace a boycott of Israel, have made them the most…
Ever since the American Studies Association announced in mid-December that its membership had voted to endorse an academic boycott of Israel, criticism of the organization’s action has snowballed. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education the “Association has itself become the target of widespread criticism and ostracism. It has gone from relative obscurity to prominence…
This is another item that I am re-posting from Futility Closet (www.futilitycloset.com). It is re-posted with the permission of Greg Ross, who maintains the site. You can have daily updates from the site delivered to your e-mail each morning. ______________ Several years after publishing Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson was abashed to discover that he had…
Here’s a Reuters photo of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford explaining how he has turned being mayor of one of the world’s major cities into a vaudeville act.