All Blog Posts
Disappearing Act: The New Logo(s) of the University of California
The recent move by the UC administration to float a new logo has been met with dismay, outrage, anger (and over 40,000 signatures on a petition protesting the new branding tool). This news story does a fairly good job of summarizing where we are at the moment I am...
On Gaza, and the Need for the Other Narrative (Truthout)
Beyond Guilt: Working in “The System” With Intellectual Responsibility (Truthout)
Reflecting on the need to connect responsibility, conscience, and education.
On Sadness (Arcade)
Some thoughts that were prompted by the ongoing discussion about MOOCs, and small humanities seminars. What can the latter do that is specific to what the humanities can offer both teachers and students? Taking the case of sadness as an example--how can we make space...
On Reading Diamela Eltit
The Fourth World. Early in my reading I am struck by how she writes simple declarative sentences that beg profound questions as to the precise substance of nouns, the power of verbs to do or not do the things she expects them to do, the whole idea of causality, and...
Poetry, Plasticity, Activism (Truthout)
Using Catherine Malabou's incisive critique of neuroscientific discourse as a call to the radical imagination, and Grace Lee Boggs's inspirational evocation of "philosophical activism."
With the Long Revolution on the Way, We Need to Think Big (Truthout)
On attending the Raymond Williams Memorial Lecture at Oxford, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of his classic, The Long Revolution, and participating in the general strike there protesting cuts to education and health. Reflecting on the...
Thinking Big (Boston Review)
Attention, Media, Poetry, Collaboration (Arcade)
After participating with Cathy Davidson, Howard Rheingold, Anne Balsamo on a live chat regarding how Brain Science Will Change the Way We Think, sponsored by the Chronicle of Higher Education, I compare that discussion to Lucy Alford's brilliant thesis on attention...
Why the Humanities are Indispensable (Arcade)
At the invitation of a colleague, I mused upon the "crisis" in the humanities and offered another take. Eventually Open Culture retweeted it and it got 30,000 readers. Afterwards engaged in a give and take with Ian Bogost.
Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back
Immanuel Wallerstein and the Problem of the World: System, Scale, Culture
