In An Anatomy of an Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and The Miracle Drug Cocaine, Howard Markel writes: At some point in every addict’s life comes the moment when what started as a recreational escape devolves into an endless reserve of negative physical, emotional, and social consequences. Those seeking recovery today call this drug-induced nadir a “bottom.”…TheContinue reading “Learning From Freud: Addiction, Distraction, Schedules”
Tag Archives: Twitter
Twitter’s Design And The Deadly Sin Of Task Modification
Over at Slate, David Auerbach has an excellent analysis of how the interface of a social networking tool–in this case, Twitter–can severely degrade the discourse it is supposed to to be facilitating: Twitter’s founders initially formulated it as a broadcast tool to publish announcements to your friends and to the world, and to that extentContinue reading “Twitter’s Design And The Deadly Sin Of Task Modification”
Then, The Eagerly Awaited Letter; Now, The Notification
Every weekday of my two years in boarding school bore witness to the implacable ritual of the mail from home: run to the teacher’s staff-room, ask for the day’s letters and postcards–sorted into piles corresponding to your ‘house‘–and then, surrounded by eager supplicants, call out the names of the lucky ones. At the end ofContinue reading “Then, The Eagerly Awaited Letter; Now, The Notification”
On A Minor Fast
I went on a little fast today. It lasted seven hours. But before you snicker at my pompous announcement of insignificant renunciation, do consider that I did not give up food or drink for that length of time. (Indeed, I made myself a four-egg omelette in that period and ate it with gusto.) Rather, IContinue reading “On A Minor Fast”
The World As Raw Material For Facebook Status And Tweet
Last morning, as I walked along a Brooklyn sidewalk to my gym, heading for my 10AM workout, I saw a young woman walking straight at me, her face turned away, attending to some other matter of interest (a smartphone, but it might have been kids or pets; the precise details of this encounter have slippedContinue reading “The World As Raw Material For Facebook Status And Tweet”
Steven Salaita And The Anger Of the Subjugated
In response to my post yesterday, which I crossposted over at the NewAPPS blog, a couple of readers there wondered about the analogy I had drawn between Professor F and Steven Salaita‘s cases. Reader Meir Alon suggested my comparison was ‘very wrong’, Darius Jedburgh said my comparison of Salaita was, indeed, ‘slanderous’, and yet anotherContinue reading “Steven Salaita And The Anger Of the Subjugated”
Steven Salaita And The Feminist Professor Who Praised Valerie Solanas
Here is a story of a professor, whose tweets got her into trouble. The professor in question is a feminist, Professor F–sometimes termed ‘radical’ by her friends, colleagues, and academic foes for her uncompromisingly feminist scholarship and her vigorous, no-nonsense rhetorical style, which is well-versed in the demolition of putative rebuttals to feminist theory andContinue reading “Steven Salaita And The Feminist Professor Who Praised Valerie Solanas”
Cutting Some Umbilical Cords (The Virtual Kind)
The day after the World Cup ended, I called my cable company and cancelled my cable and land-line subscriptions. (My phone call with my internet service provider’s customer service representative was long-winded, perhaps inevitably so given the number of inducements sent my way suggesting I only change the offerings in my subscription packages, but itContinue reading “Cutting Some Umbilical Cords (The Virtual Kind)”
Not So Fast With The Private Surveillance
A revealing–no pun intended–reaction to news of Steven Salaita’s troubles at the University of Illinois was that he was only paying the price for having his social media speech monitored (or surveilled) by his employer. As the argument goes, all employers monitor social media; we should all accept the consequences–in our places and zones ofContinue reading “Not So Fast With The Private Surveillance”
Steven Salaita and Academic Freedom in Academic and ‘Non-Academic’ Spaces
Steven Salaita might have thought he was headed for a new faculty position: the University of Illinois had made him a job offer, he had accepted, and resigned his position at Virginia Tech. But not so fast: the Chancellor of the university rescinded the offer, apparently because of Salaita’s aggressively vocal presence on Twitter, whereContinue reading “Steven Salaita and Academic Freedom in Academic and ‘Non-Academic’ Spaces”
Samir Chopra 