Some emailers to the Dish think that Ta-Nehisi Coates is too negative about all this race stuff. And I mean, really! What reason might we have to be pessimistic about race in America? I guess some people just have a bad attitude.
Continue reading →I thought this Tim Harford piece, on the seduction of so-called Big Data and the notion of post-theory, was really good. Harford makes several important points about the ways in which Big Data enthusiasts have underestimated or misunderstood long-term issues with analyzing statistical data. I want to expand a little bit on the question of […]
Continue reading →Today Brendan O’Connor at Gawker wrote something that was wrong and dumb. This is okay. When you write enough you sometimes write stuff that is wrong and dumb. But other people have to tell you when you’re wrong and dumb, otherwise the world gets dumber. So I told him it was wrong and dumb. After […]
Continue reading →Along with my petty obsession about the STEM shortage myth, I’m frequently puzzled by the common assertion that we need to send people into trade schools to solve our labor market woes. I find this to be a far less acute problem than STEM mythology, in part because it’s a less common of an argument, […]
Continue reading →Via the Dish, I read Shikma Dalmia making the case against California’s attempt to increase black and Hispanic enrollment at their best public universities– still, after all of the neoliberal assaults and constant funding cuts, the best public university system in the world– and arguing that this defeat was a natural priority of California’s large […]
Continue reading →I’ve gotten a lot of good responses to my post on free speech and the social justice left. I appreciate both the praise and the criticism. I would like to take a moment and respond to one line of criticism, which is part of a particular frustration of mine: when I am told that attitudes […]
Continue reading →It’s a question I’ve played around with before. Generally, the response is something like “of course not, stop slandering us,” or whatever. But more and more often, I find that the answer from lefties I know in academia or online writing are answering “yes.” And that is, frankly, terrifying and a total betrayal of the […]
Continue reading →Technical difficulties!
Continue reading →So this “The Pointlessness of Unplugging” essay has been making the usual rounds. I hate to even write this post, because it’s so obligatory from me at this point, so I’ll keep it short: if the digital life is as fulling, untroubled, and complete as these essayists frequently make it out to be, why do […]
Continue reading →Here’s a brief catalog of panels and sessions devoted to labor issues for adjuncts and conatingent faculty here at the conference: First, the Program Chair Adam Banks, Conference Chair Howard Tinberg, and Exemplar Award winners Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher all mentioned the needs of adjuncts in their remarks at the opening ceremony. The Committee […]
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