Mark Bauerlein’s article on papers delivered at academic conferences (above) reminds me of the day I discovered the awful truth about such texts. Arriving in San Francisco in the summer of 1967 to cover the annual sociological convention for the New York Times, I headed for the press room and asked for a copy of […]
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At research universities in the United States, most departments in the humanities have a travel budget that supports professional activities for their faculty members. Most of it goes to help professors attend academic conferences and deliver a paper to colleagues and attend sessions as an audience member as well. For a department of 30 people, the amount […]
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I was glad to see my article on the CCCC conference generate so much interest and commentary. I do feel a need to respond to a few of them. In response to the comments accusing me of cherry-picking among the panels and the speakers on the site Tedx, I suggest that all go to the […]
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About this time of year, faculty members seek relief from their stressful campus existence by flocking to such fun-filled destinations as Orlando and Las Vegas for their annual professional conferences. However, these workaholics never are far removed from their sociopolitical agendas, which are available for the world to see in workshop descriptions laid out in […]
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Several years ago, in a seminal Chronicle of Higher Education essay, Mark Bauerlein lamented a campus in which “the simple trappings of deliberation make academics think that they’ve reached an opinion through reasoned debate—instead of, in part, through an irrational social dynamic. The opinion takes on the status of a norm. Extreme views appear to […]
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