All entries by this author

Susan Haack on Vulgar Rortyism *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

It’s important to distinguish between necessary, useful technicality, and jargon or pseudo-mathematics substituting for genuine rigor.… Read the rest



Professionalization in the Humanities *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

What if you want to talk about an authentic self instead of an ‘authentic self’?… Read the rest



McCarthyism’s Indian Rebirth *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

The new chauvinism receives official sanction from government and academic institutions.… Read the rest



Frank Furedi on Paranoid Parents *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

The world is a jungle, barely one child in a hundred escapes being murdered! Or so you would think.… Read the rest



So Sylvia Plath was a Poet? *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘Death and marriage may have fed and fuelled her writing, but – posthumously at least – they cramp her style.’… Read the rest



Hitchens on Contrarianism *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘Among his many weapons are a forensic curiosity, a vast learning, a savage wit, a commanding intellect, an international perspective and a moral authority that is built on something sturdier than cheap moralising.’… Read the rest



A Moral Argument for Atheism *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Slaughter of innocents, human sacrifice, eternal torture – it’s all there.… Read the rest



Durkheim on Religion *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

The way to ‘reject the insipid relativism of the tabula rasa without denying or ignoring the freedom and variability of individual human beings and their cultures.’… Read the rest



Memory and trauma *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Sally Satel looks at the way we construct narratives about our symptoms.… Read the rest



Curtis White on The Middle Mind *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Book reviews in glossy magazines, worshipful interviewers on public radio and tv, ‘annoying’ as the ultimate condemnation…… Read the rest



The Baghdad blogger. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

What life was really like in Saddam’s Iraq and what it’s like now.… Read the rest



Livid Quietism on the Right *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘The anti-intellectuals are finally on the side of power at its most unforgiving and voracious.’… Read the rest



‘Without a theory, you can’t meet the people.’ *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Miller wonders why ‘unavailing Latinate neologisms’ convince so many people that something profound is being said.… Read the rest



Or Academic Pooh and Postmodern Instincts *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Literary criticism, cultural studies; love letter and satire.… Read the rest



The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Consider Will Crooks, Labour MP. ‘Growing up in extreme poverty…Crooks spent 2d. on a secondhand Iliad, and was dazzled…’… Read the rest



Carol Tavris Wonders Where the Evidence Is *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘But the gender-genre books that are based largely on clinical intuition and popular psychology typically lack a basic skepticism toward received wisdom and the willingness to wrestle with an idea to see who wins.’… Read the rest



Research psychology or psychotherapy. *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘…many of the widely accepted claims promulgated by therapists are based on subjective clinical opinions and have been resoundingly disproved by empirical research conducted by psychological scientists.’… Read the rest



Dwight Macdonald *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

‘…all but a fraction of his own writing molders unattended in America’s used bookstores. Like the New York Intellectuals with whom he was associated…he is referenced more often than read, a sad fate for a critic who wrote so much, so well and with such wit and insight.’… Read the rest



The Great Convergence *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Beware of neo-Deistic pseudoreligion.… Read the rest



The margins are getting so crowded! *

Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by

Centrality is so uncool that the margins are as full of people as Bangkok or the Aran Islands.… Read the rest