Archive for the ‘academia’ Category
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
Like everyone who does what I do for a living, I occasionally get asked what philosophy is, or what I do as a philosopher. Today, Brian Leiter links to a nice little collection of famous philosophers' quotes on "What is philosophy?" here; he also quotes two of the best, ...
Posted in academia | No Comments »
Monday, January 28th, 2008
I've been tagged by P.D. with the "Why do you teach and why is academic freedom critical to that effort?" meme; so here goes.
I too am first inclined to the glib response, that I teach because I'm a philosopher, and how the hell else am I going to make a ...
Posted in academia | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007
In the past few years I've noticed a little trend that has seemed to accelerate recently, and it's this: The college students in my classes seem much more likely to respond to not doing well in my class by asking about and seeking out tutors in the subject.
Normally, I ...
Posted in academia | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, August 28th, 2007
After a summer's worth of talking to one or two people at a time, there's always something slightly odd about getting back up in front of 200 or so mostly frosh and yelling at them (OK, lecturing in the loud voice) for an hour. It all comes back fine, but ...
Posted in academia, personal | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007
The Times has sucked for their paywall "Times Select" BS. But those of you who have a .edu email address can now get it for free, at least. Check it out at TimesSelect University E-mail Verification.
Posted in academia, society | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007
From PHD Comics: Where do I sign?
Maybe you had to have been there. Which I have, of course. And these days, I am Prof. Smith.
Posted in academia | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 27th, 2007
It's not just me getting old and grumpy; it's now been scientifically proven that College students think they're so special.
Posted in academia, society | No Comments »
Thursday, May 11th, 2006
A colleague from another university who teaches an intro course exposing students to, among other things, the arguments undermining the existence of God and the lack of good arguments for God's existence, got this bit of feedback at the end of the course from one of his students (spelling and ...
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Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
Hey, BoingBoing picked up the fabulous Philosophers Finger Puppets (Boing Boing: Famous people fingerpuppets). As I've mentioned here (The family business), Oz has the Plato, Kant, Hegel, & Nietzsche set, and Plato and Nietzsche in particular often get significant roles in his puppet theatre productions. (I think he ...
Posted in academia, parenting | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 31st, 2006
Jorge Cham's Piled Higher and Deeper is a comic strip about being in grad school from someone who clearly has. Pretty funny if you're acquainted with the micro-world of ABD life. As someone who's looked at dissertations from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow, ...
Posted in academia, fun | No Comments »