- When Philosophers Join the Kill Chain-An op-ed by Mark Levine in Al-Jazeera about Bradley Strawser, the philosopher who has been defending the moral imperative of done strikes. Levine is highly critical of Strawser, particularly in his attempts to defend the use of drones through the concepts of just war without considering the implications for actual people. Another academic is less than thrilled at Levine’s blunt use of philosophers, but agrees with his overall point.
- Remembering Gore Vidal: A Dying Breed– A blog post on the Economist that points out that Gore Vidal was a breed of public intellectual that is not commonly seen anymore.
- Court Rejects Assertion that ‘Tenure’ Means Continuous Employment-A law professor in Michigan was fired after she refused to teach the assigned courses, an act that has now been upheld through a court case and an appeal. I am not entirely clear on what the details of the case were, but it seems that she tried to make the claim that tenure entails continuous lifetime employment, something that the court explicitly did not uphold. It seems that this will just help define the parameters of behavior that warrants termination, but it is a definition that bears watching.
- Survival Strategy for Humanists: Engage, Engage– A piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education about how humanities can survive in the future. Not much new here, but it is nice that this sort of argument seems to be slowly picking up steam. The idea is that communication, writing, teaching skills need to be taught and then we should stop writing books that are utterly incomprehensible.
- Writers and readers on Twitter and Tumblr-An article on Slate that implies that “coddling” (my words) has a negative impact on art and artistry, so the feel good back-patting that takes place between authors and readers online only serves as a cheap form of therapy, but does not improve literature. I think that the author is not totally wrong.
- The “Immeasurable”– An enlightening graph about grading.
As always, comments encouraged. What else is out there?
Noodlings 