Humanities
Category archives for Humanities
The Ethics of Santa
Posted by Chad Orzel on December 23, 2009 Janet has a post grappling with the ethical implications of telling children about Santa Claus. SteelyKid is too young for this to be an issue yet, but on this issue, like many others, I turn to my favorite literary philosopher, Terry Pratchett: “All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to…
Where Were You When…?
Posted by Chad Orzel on November 10, 2009 I failed to write something on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall yesterday, partly because I think the other six million blog posts on the subject had it pretty well covered. Another factor, though, was the fact that I don’t have the sort of crystal-clear recollection of where I was and what…
Rule 1 of Writing: Try Not to Sound Like a Doofus
Posted by Chad Orzel on October 29, 2009 Via somebody on Twitter, Copyblogger has a post titled “7 Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School,” which is, as you might guess, dedicated to provocatively contrarian advice about how to write, boldly challenging the received wisdom of English faculty: What is good writing? Ask an English teacher, and they’ll tell you good writing is…
With Polymaths Like These…
Posted by Chad Orzel on October 19, 2009 It’s hard to say exactly why I found Edward Carr’s article on polymaths so irritating, but I suspect it was this bit: The monomaths do not only swarm over a specialism, they also play dirty. In each new area that Posner picks–policy or science–the experts start to erect barricades. “Even in relatively soft fields, specialists…
Nobel Prize Betting Pool
Posted by Chad Orzel on September 28, 2009 It’s that time of year again, when the Nobel Prizes are announced– the official announcements will be made starting next Monday. And, as usual, people are speculating about who will win, on both an amateur and professional basis. Meanwhile, as we’ve done in the past, I will offer a valuable prize to anyone who predicts…
The Endnoting of Michael Pemulis
Posted by Chad Orzel on September 8, 2009 Via the Infinite summer roundup, Infinite Detox has a post about the novel’s treatment of my favorite supporting character, whose title I have shamelessly stolen: The problem I have is that from a dramatic standpoint, the wave of Pemulis-bashing that gathers force on p. 774 and crests in endnote 332 isn’t convincing to me. For…
Half-Assed General Education Course Idea, continued
Posted by Chad Orzel on July 27, 2009 Timothy Burke notes a controversy about an NEH program that some philosophers feel tramples their discipline. In talking about a hypothetical program that would do the same for his field of history, Burke suggests something that caught my eye: f the NEH set up a course development grant called “Time and the Past” aimed at…
Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson
Posted by Chad Orzel on July 5, 2009 I’ve been enjoying Tom Levenson’s “Diary of a Trade Book” series quite a bit (the latest post is on cover art), so when I say a stack of copies of Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist at the bookstore the other day, I snapped one up. As the…
A Literary Theory
Posted by Chad Orzel on July 2, 2009 There is a fairly prominent strain of SF fandom which vehemently rejects all but the most superficial forms of literary analysis. This mostly seems to be due to bad experiences with English Lit classes in high school and/or college, at least based on the long rants they used to uncork on Usenet, back in the…
Answers Matter More than Questions
Posted by Chad Orzel on June 19, 2009 The smart-people blogosphere is all abuzz about questions from the French college entrance exams, with comments from Matt Yglesias, Dana Goldstein, and Kevin Drum, among others. The general tone of the commentary is summed up by Goldstein’s question: Could you ever imagine the SAT or ACT asking students to write an essay on such complex,…
