Introducing the Extended Mind Bookcase
The ever-extending ‘to-read’ list isn’t an unfamiliar occupational hazard, I trust. Nor are the reciprocals: the to-read pile, the have-read pile … and the faintly distressing haven’t-finished pile. Add in concepts like a finite lifespan and a finite number of bookshelves that will fit in the basement (and the finite number of boxes that will fit in the basement, and your father-in-law’s attic, and your mother’s spare room), and the other occupational hazard is inevitable: the never-ending discussion (with ourselves and our long-suffering spouses) about how many books one rationally needs. Or, worse, do you really need that book?
There’s a Japanese word I’m inordinately fond of: tsundoku. It means ... Read More
Picking My Epistemological Battles
I should begin by acknowledging up front that I find myself on the more curmudgeonly end of the professorial spectrum. I’m more than happy to lament the sorry state of … students’ preparation for college, student feedback forms and grade inflation, Credentialism and job markets, administrative overreach and too tentative administrations, &c., &c. (In fact, the opportunity to complain is one of the attractions of co-writing this blog!) I often say that my dream job would be in the Religion Department at the University of Vermont … in 1973. (I’d say 1873, but Religion was still theological then, and I don’t particularly want to learn antique Greek.)
Which is to say that it really, really annoys me whenever I’m forced to confront evidence that I just might be part of the problem.
Read More
Subscribe
Sign up to get updates and new posts from Academic Tribes.
[not yet set up]
