Of late, I’ve noticed that I have begun using more profanity in the classroom than I ever have previously in my teaching career. (Strictly speaking, I do not ‘use’ more profanity; I ‘mention’ it. That is, rather than using the word ‘fuck’ in a sentence like “This is a fucking crazy argument,” I mention itContinue reading “Cussin’ In The Classroom”
Category Archives: Language
Wittgenstein’s Lion And Solaris
Kris Kelvin, Snow, Gibrarian, and Sartorius are all puzzled and perplexed; as other educated and intelligent residents of Station Solaris–a sophisticated scientific laboratory–have been before them. They are stumped and bewildered by their interactions with the planet Solaris, with the ocean that covers its surface, the one that plays host to mimoids and symmetriads andContinue reading “Wittgenstein’s Lion And Solaris”
Kids Say The Darndest Things: Every Child A Prophet
Like many other proud parents, I post my child’s latest ‘wise pronouncements’ as my Facebook statuses, trusting they will evoke favorable reactions–mainly guffaws, and some flattering assessments of her precocity–from my friends. Kids do, after all, say the darndest things; and if we can soak some up the reflected glory for being responsible for bringingContinue reading “Kids Say The Darndest Things: Every Child A Prophet”
John Muir On The ‘Negroes’ Of The American South
John Muir often wrote soaring prose about the beauties and majesties of nature, about how the outdoors were our ‘natural cathedrals’; he urged his fellow human beings to leave behind their sordid, grubby, weekday cares and let themselves be elevated by the sublime qualities of hill and vale and river and babbling brook. Here, onContinue reading “John Muir On The ‘Negroes’ Of The American South”
Brave Analytic Philosophers Use Trump Regime To Settle Old Academic Scores
Recently, Daniel Dennett took the opportunity to, as John Protevi put it, “settle some old academic scores.” He did this by making the following observation in an interview with The Guardian: I think what the postmodernists did was truly evil. They are responsible for the intellectual fad that made it respectable to be cynical aboutContinue reading “Brave Analytic Philosophers Use Trump Regime To Settle Old Academic Scores”
Freud As Writing Stylist And Pedagogy Instructor
In Freud, Jews and Other Germans: Master and Victims in Modernist Culture¹(Oxford University Press, New York, 1978), Peter Gay writes: All of Freud’s biographers devote an obligatory page to the efficiency and beauty of his prose–not without reason. Freud’s stylistic achievement is all the more remarkable considering the spectrum of his publications…Freud’s case published caseContinue reading “Freud As Writing Stylist And Pedagogy Instructor”
The Words We Mutter Under Our Breath
Some years ago, as I waited to be served food by a prickly employee of an eating establishment, I sensed my temper flaring. She and I had had run-ins before; she had always seemed unnecessarily querulous and brusque in her interactions with me; the milk of human kindness seemed to have curdled long ago inContinue reading “The Words We Mutter Under Our Breath”
Donald Trump’s ‘Hot-Mic’ And Men Talking About Sex
A friend offers the following reaction to the latest ‘sensational’ disclosures about Donald Trump’s misogyny: To all the guys on my feed posting their shock and outrage over Trump’s hot-mic comments about women: give me a break. “How could America possibly elect someone who talks like this about women??” you ask. Do you honestly thinkContinue reading “Donald Trump’s ‘Hot-Mic’ And Men Talking About Sex”
Paul Ryan’s ‘Mea Culpa’ Speech: Anatomy of Political Bad Faith
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a significant subset of the demographic consisting of American liberals and progressives and centrists are among the most gullible political subjects of all: throw them a bone or two–i.e., a substantive or purely rhetorical political concession–and they’ll immediately drop previously held convictions. The visible reaction to Paul Ryan‘sContinue reading “Paul Ryan’s ‘Mea Culpa’ Speech: Anatomy of Political Bad Faith”
Bilinguality And Being ‘Different People In Different Languages’
Over at LitHub, Ana Menéndez asks that age-old question ‘Are We Different People in Different Languages,’ and, by way of a partial answer, writes: For me, language was a kind of initiation into multiple realities. For if one language could be certain of a table’s gender and another couldn’t be bothered, then what was trueContinue reading “Bilinguality And Being ‘Different People In Different Languages’”
Samir Chopra 