All entries by this author

The Public Library of Science *

Oct 8th, 2003 | Filed by

Scientific reasearch should be freely available.… Read the rest



A Carla Sandwich and Disgrace *

Oct 8th, 2003 | Filed by

John Sutherland recommends Coetzee, Roth and Prose novels for understanding of sexual harrassment.… Read the rest



Neil Postman Obituary *

Oct 8th, 2003 | Filed by

NYU media critic, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death and other influential books.… Read the rest



Market-Worship is Ideology Too *

Oct 8th, 2003 | Filed by

Ignoring the differences between government and business is ideology.… Read the rest



Prevention

Oct 7th, 2003 8:42 pm | By

Our sermon for today is on the text

The religiosity of the recovery movement is evident in its rhetorical appeals to a higher power and in the evangelical fervor of its disciples. When I criticize the movement I am usually accused of being ‘in denial,’ as I might once have been accused of heresy.

That is from Wendy Kaminer’s examination of the ‘recovery’ and self-help movements, I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional. But the reaction she describes is typical of vastly more ‘movements’ and ideological systems than just the self-help variety. In fact it’s probably fairly difficult to find a ‘movement’ or ideology whose adherents don’t resort to that tactic. If someone criticises a set of ideas to which I am … Read the rest



Eagleton and Kermode *

Oct 7th, 2003 | Filed by

‘While Eagleton has always shouted his heresies, Frank Kermode has whispered his doubts.’… Read the rest



Critical Realism Replacing Postmodernism? *

Oct 7th, 2003 | Filed by

‘If postmodernism is indeed dead…Sokal and Bricmont have surely been instrumental in hastening the death-throes.’… Read the rest



How to Evaluate Evidence *

Oct 7th, 2003 | Filed by

Crooked Timber discusses evidence for and against global warming, and how hard it is to know the difference.… Read the rest



Toxins in Organic Maize *

Oct 7th, 2003 | Filed by

No agriculture is ‘natural’ but without it we’ll all starve to death, remember?… Read the rest



Sincerity is Not Enough

Oct 6th, 2003 5:28 pm | By

Alan Wolfe has a new book out, in which he apparently says something very silly.

As modern Americans with distinctly tolerant sensibilities, you pride yourselves on your willingness to change, yet religious believers, even the most conservative among them, have adopted themselves to modern society far more than you have changed your views about what they are really like. You have made the whole country more sensitive to the inequalities of race and gender. Now it is time to extend the same sympathy to those who are different in the sincerity of their belief.

Well, I for one don’t put ‘tolerance’ at the center of my politics or my belief system or whatever you want to call it, precisely because … Read the rest



You Mean Knowledge Can Be Useful? *

Oct 6th, 2003 | Filed by

Clever old Congress, firing those pesky scientists. Err – ooops.… Read the rest



Femininity, Phooey *

Oct 6th, 2003 | Filed by

Oh no, it’s gone! Well what a relief.… Read the rest



Fundamentalism in Pakistan *

Oct 6th, 2003 | Filed by

Creeping Talibanization apparent even in the universities.… Read the rest



Great Lowing Herds of Rebels

Oct 5th, 2003 9:38 pm | By

Erin O’Connor at Critical Timber continues to expand on her discussion of conformity in the humanities. There are new posts here and here.

This is a large, rich subject, and one that has been under discussion for quite a long time, for instance in the pages of the late lamented Lingua Franca. William Kerrigan has an excellent essay on his enchantment and then disenchantment with Derrida and ‘theory’ called ‘The Falls of Academe’ in Wild Orchids and Trotsky. David Lehman discusses the displacement of literature by literary ‘theory’ in Signs of the Times. Helena Echlin describes the misery of being a literature graduate student at Yale in this essay.

But my professors look at me as if

Read the rest


It’s All So Much Funnier Now *

Oct 5th, 2003 | Filed by

Criticism has gone bonkers in the forty years between ‘The Pooh Perplex’ and ‘Postmodern Pooh.’… Read the rest



Rorty on Davidson *

Oct 5th, 2003 | Filed by

Retail skepticism makes sense but wholesale does not.… Read the rest



Twitching

Oct 4th, 2003 4:45 pm | By

As B and W gets ever more popular, I find myself cringing at times. So many right-wing blogs seem to like us. Fortunately so do a lot of left-wing ones, as well as less-politically-classifiable ones, but all the same, I do cringe. But as my colleague likes to remind me, the left has only itself to blame (or, when he’s being ruder, it serves the left right). If they will insist on being woolly, if they will insist on ignoring evidence they don’t like – then they’re just giving away ammunition, that’s all. The more leftish voices there are trying to keep the left honest, the better, and if that’s a gift to the right too, so be it.

But … Read the rest



Sacred and Inviolable

Oct 4th, 2003 2:49 pm | By

I had a bit of a dispute or anyway discussion with my colleague yesterday, about one paragraph in his article on the Bright idea. On this Durkheimian idea that religion does not necessarily entail a belief in the supernatural, that it can also refer to the sacred, and hence to inviolable unrevisable ideas. I haven’t read Durkheim, and I need to. I think the only reason I resist the idea is that that’s not what people usually mean by religion (a point Richard Dawkins makes in his article ‘The Great Convergence’). Discussions and arguments about religion can become frustratingly evasive and slippery when the parties are not talking about the same entity, and defenders of religion have a way … Read the rest



More Philip Stott *

Oct 4th, 2003 | Filed by

Newspapers are supposed to report, not speculate.… Read the rest



Philip Stott Tears a Strip Off Guardian *

Oct 4th, 2003 | Filed by

‘It is precisely such spin and partial reporting that is undermining the role of science in society.’… Read the rest