Is any science as desperate as computer science to be really, really liked? I ask because not for the first time, and certainly not the last, I am confronted with yet another report of an effort to make computer science ‘cool’, trying in fact, to make its central component–programming–cool. The presence of technology in theContinue reading “Please, Can We Make Programming Cool?”
Category Archives: Writing
The Masterpiece Too Horrible To Recommend: Francine Prose on Haneke’s Amour
Francine Prose–(what an excellent last name!)–titles her review of Michael Haneke‘s Amour ‘A Masterpiece You Might Not Want to See’, (New York Review of Books Blog, 7 January 2013) and begins with the following: Michael Haneke’s Amour is the ultimate horror film. With its portrayal of the shocks, the cruelties and indignities to which old age and disease subjectContinue reading “The Masterpiece Too Horrible To Recommend: Francine Prose on Haneke’s Amour”
Copy-Editing and Proofing Nightmares With a Twist
Dreams are revealing and so, I have never talked about my dreams on this blog. And perhaps that struck me as too self-indulgent. But that is a decidedly strange decision because, from time to time, I have indulged in many autobiographical ramblings here. Today, I’m going to recount one from last night, most certainly one ofContinue reading “Copy-Editing and Proofing Nightmares With a Twist”
No Matter Where You Go, There’s Home: Robert Viscusi’s Astoria
This morning, while out for a errand-laden walk–visiting the pediatrician’s office, shopping, and getting an influenza vaccine shot–in this bizarrely gorgeous East Coast January weather, I ran into my friend and Brooklyn College colleague, the poet Robert Viscusi, with whom I work at the Wolfe Institute for the Humanities. I admire Bob for his erudition, wit,Continue reading “No Matter Where You Go, There’s Home: Robert Viscusi’s Astoria”
Beware the Easily Defined Philosophical Term
Over the course of my philosophy career, I’ve come to realize I sometimes use technical philosophical terms without an exceedingly determinate conception of their precise meaning. But I do, however, know how to use them in a particular philosophical context that will make sense to an interlocutor–reader, discussant, student–who has a background similar to mine.Continue reading “Beware the Easily Defined Philosophical Term”
‘Write As If Your Parents Were Dead’
Phillip Roth is said to have tendered the following advice–on the art of writing–to Ian McEwan : ‘Write as if your parents were dead.’ By this, I take it that Roth meant for McEwan to write with a distinctive fearlessness, one not courting parental approval, not apprehensive of parental disapproval of writerly indulgence, of libertiesContinue reading “‘Write As If Your Parents Were Dead’”
2012’s Top Five Posts (Here, Not Elsewhere)
2012, the year that was (or still is, for a few more hours), turned out to be a busy one for blogging at this site. I wrote three hundred and twenty-four new posts, bringing the total for this blog to three hundred and fifty-five. The blog finally crossed fifty thousand views. (A humbling figure, ifContinue reading “2012’s Top Five Posts (Here, Not Elsewhere)”
Semester’s End: A Teaching Self-Evaluation
As this semester winds down to its inevitable, slow, painful end, it’s time to reflect just a little on what went right and what went wrong with my teaching. I taught three classes: Philosophical Issues in Literature, Core Philosophy (Honors), and Political Philosophy. These three constituted three ‘new’ preparations for me: I last taught CoreContinue reading “Semester’s End: A Teaching Self-Evaluation”
Aimé Césaire’s Immortal, Eminently Quotable Line
From Notebook of a Return To My Native Land: For it is not true that the work of man is finished, That we have nothing more to do in the world, That we are just parasites in this world, That it is enough for us to walk in step with the world, For the work ofContinue reading “Aimé Césaire’s Immortal, Eminently Quotable Line”
Coming For You with Chuck D and Public Enemy
In reviewing Jay-Z‘s book Decoded—a collection of lyrics with extensive commentary–(‘Word‘, The New Yorker, December 6 2010) Kelefa Sanneh writes: Too often, hip-hop’s embrace of crime narratives has been portrayed as a flaw or a mistake, a regrettable detour from the overtly ideological rhymes of groups like Public Enemy. But in Jay-Z’s view Public EnemyContinue reading “Coming For You with Chuck D and Public Enemy”
Samir Chopra 