Blogs

What if Professors Smith and Jones swapped papers for a semester? I’d be intrigued to hear from anyone who has actually tried this.

I read with great interest Pamela Haag’s thoughtful assessment of her time at Swarthmore (and later Yale) in which she asks, “Are elite colleges worth it?”

I just attended THATCamp Publishing, a lively day of making and doing in classic THATcamp unconference mode. If you’re unfamiliar with THATCamp, it’s a terrific series of humanities and technology unconferences.

You love books. I love books. Neither of us has much time. How can we read more?

According to Grist, the Wall Street occupiers are now getting their electricity generated by means of stationary bicycles. A handful of Greenback students have devised similar contraptions over the years, so it's nice to see them being applied in a real-world (and very public) situation. I have mixed feelings about the previous electricity source (portable generators) having been seized by the authorities, but I definitely like how things ended up.

A few nights ago I was sitting at the dinner table with colleagues from Brazil trying to explain the US higher education system. You never realize how complicated US higher education is until you try to explain it to someone. What does it mean to be a private university in the US?

Two graphics (both released in the last two days) capture broad-based aspects of the fiscal squeeze confronting public higher education in the United States.

I got an A+ in Porn. That fact still amuses and delights me, and in certain circles I am sure to find some semi-awkward way to bring it up in conversation. And while I would never claim to be an aficionado of pornographic film or erotic text, I did spend a great deal of time this past Winter in a Special Studies course exploring pornography, erotica and romance, focusing on the production of erotic writing by women.