This post is very long, and on a subject of interest to few. Consider invoking your privilege to not read it. (Seriously it’s really very long so please don’t read it and then complain that it’s too long. You’ve been warned.) For the last few years I’ve filed dispatches from the Conference on College Composition and Communication. […]
Continue reading →This Michelle Goldberg essay on the Laura Kipnis kerfuffle at Northwestern is the sort of piece that seems to push my buttons so precisely that I don’t want to write about it, if that makes sense. It also reflects the tangled issues at the heart of questions of free thought and free expression. I applaud the […]
Continue reading →I’ve just added to my teaching portfolio a syllabus and some course materials for a proposed class in information literacy and data journalism, embedded below. These are materials that I developed for a job that just rejected me. It’s a shame I won’t get a chance to teach this course there, but maybe I’ll get […]
Continue reading →Whenever I write about controversial issues, such as intersectionality politics or Israel-Palestine or any number of things, I receive a certain kind of counsel, sometimes admonishment. Sometimes it’s a kind of well-meaning advice from people who agree with me, sometimes a kind of scolding by those who don’t. But in each case, the argument is […]
Continue reading →This is a topic about which I will reliably lose my temper, so let me try to stay in control. It’s an undeniable fact that there’s a level of casual bigotry against Muslims that is permissible in our media that would not be permissible against any other group. That’s why The Atlantic can yet again publish […]
Continue reading →For awhile now I’ve counseled leftists to apply the inverse of Gandhi’s famous dictum: think of the most privileged person you have ever seen, and ask if your next act will be of any threat to him. I call this the Rich Uncle Pennybags test, after the guy from Monopoly. The question is, does your next […]
Continue reading →I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of engineers in my days here at an engineering school. A couple years back, a friend of mine who is also an academic was visiting from her institution. (I have gotten her permission to tell this story, with the caveat that I admit that I am […]
Continue reading →“…none of these directors has made a film that has the unadulterated momentum of District 9, which unfurls like an act of God.” – Kevin Lincoln, in a not-bad-at-all reconsidering of District 9. Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to write too-cute metaphors. Metaphors can go bad in one of two ways: they can be […]
Continue reading →This post contains significant spoilers about True Detective and The Fall. So I just finished watching the second season of The Fall, with Gillian Anderson. It’s really very well done, smart and political and beautifully shot. Anderson is a standout as detective Stella Gibson, but the cast is overall excellent too. It’s got the overall quality […]
Continue reading →Like a lot of terms that get bandied around, it’s not always clear what “data journalism” means, but I’ll risk the potential for being a bit vague and assume that most people know what I’m talking about. We’ve seen a rapid growth in the use of arguments based on statistics in the popular media in […]
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