More Anti-Immigrant Stuff

In the past few months, I’ve been personally present for several nasty anti-immigrant comments, which I guess I never blogged about. I won’t right now, except to say that there’s a real nativist streak that runs across the whole political spectrum in Canada. Despite the talk about multiculturalism and being a nation of immigrants, there …

More on Academic Blogging

The Barnacle of Higher Ed has been covering the controversy over academic blogging (or doing their best to manufacture one) for over a year now. The latest is a symposium on whether blogging “damaged” Juan Cole’s career. Cole is a middle east expert and a full professor at the University of Michigan. The “damage”? Apparently …

Disembodied Fish

Stanley Fish’s op-ed in today’s New York Times(1) argues that professors must separate themselves from their subject matter in the classroom. I believe we have some professional duties which require us to put our “selves” aside (for instance, not grading down students for disagreeing with us) but I also think that there are times when …

Google Book Search

So today was my first serious encounter with google book search. I hadn’t played around with it much, but came across an unattributed phrase in a so-so book on animal rights called An Unnatural Order. The book argues that the domination of nature through agriculture, men’s domination of women, people’s domination of animals and colonial …

“The House” 26, False Consciousness 13

A smaller-than-usual False Consciousness squad took the field against a shockingly large team from the “House” Friday evening. Despite a little rain, nobody slipped and fell, but we were thoroughly routed. Not in the trash-talking, mind you, but in the runs column. For the second game in a row we had an outstanding rookie performance …