A Republican politician writes: “What happened to the Republican Party that felt that the government has no business being in an exam room, standing between me and my patient? Where did the party go that felt some decisions in a woman’s life should be made not by legislators and government, but rather by the women, her conscience, her doctor and her God?” What, indeed?
A prissiness attack among a group of academics.
The economic crisis in France must be harsher than we all supposed if people are freaking out like this about gay marriage law.
I often feel like people live in different reality than mine. See this, for example: “A similarity between them and me is that I, from my particular experiences, also know what it is to be pressured to stay in the game when you know, rationally, that the game is up. You are exhorted to keep trying by people who will not recognize that you no longer have enough open credit to get to the MLA, and told that unwillingness to move to a non-research university is alack of commitment to research.” I cannot even begin to imagine anybody on this planet having any interest in exhorting me to do anything. Let alone to keep trying to get a specific job. I can’t conceive of anybody being so passionately invested in my life choices that they would pressure me to do anything professionally. This is one more way in which I feel very alienated from my colleagues. They seem to be surrounded by crowds of people who keep wanting them to live a certain way. I’m even jealous of this sort of popularity in a way.
An amazing recipe for a healthy salmon casserole.
Very helpful suggestions on how to teach grad students to read critical essays. If only somebody had done this for me when I was a grad student. . . I’m realizing every day how deficient both of my graduate programs were.
A very interesting post on shamanism.
Of all the weird self-help groups, this must be the weirdest.
Wearing your diagnosis on your T-shirt.
God, I hate it when people say stupid things and try to pass them off as science: “The research suggests that though both men and women struggle to extricate themselves from traditional gender roles, women are generally doing a much better job of it than are men. From the workplace to the university, women are far more willing to move into traditionally male spaces and adopt traditionally male behaviors than men are to do the reverse.” How can anybody seriously believe that calculating whether women are more willing to do whatever than men? More importantly, how can anybody think that stoking the fires of the gender wars is a positive contribution to feminism? “Men” and “women” do not exist. There are no “men who are not willing / doing a worse job” or “women who are willing / doing a better job.” Feminism exists precisely so that the myth all men / all women possessing shared characteristics should be dispelled.
Isn’t it great we are not in 1963 any more? Seriously, can you think of any time in history where you would rather live than right now?
And the post of the week that I would like everybody to read: these alarmist posts and articles we have been seeing recently about the demise of the Humanities are completely wrong and based on faulty evidence. Of course, the Wall Street Journal wants us to believe that Humanities are in the sate of collapse. But that’s simply an ideological manipulation with no basis in reality. Nothing is collapsing, dying, or becoming extinct. Except for the brains of mainstream journalists.
And also a really great set of questions to accompany the post of the week: “What would it mean for us not to believe that the humanities are in crisis? How might we teach differently, research differently, or approach broader questions of educational policy differently?” This is a discussion that is definitely worth having. Which is why I will break my own rule and nominate this post to our second post of the week.
Clarissa's Blog 
I wonder if somebody who needs anger management is considered equal to, say, somebody with depression issues
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“They seem to be surrounded by crowds of people who keep wanting them to live a certain way.” (1) You haven’t been around as long. (2) You haven’t done anything like seriously take steps to leave. I was *amazed* to find myself the object of a nationwide phone tree — had no idea this would happen.
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People actually called you on the phone from around the country to ask you to stay? Strangers?
Wow, now I’m seriously jealous.
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No, other professors I knew, from conferences and publications and interviews and so on. Some I did not know well, but were friends of friends, and had been alerted by our mutual friends. I had been a professor about eight years by that point, and I had a good vita then.
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I might work in the field for 38 years and still won’t know anybody. Of course, there are positive and negative sides to anything.
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Isn’t it great we are not in 1963 any more? Seriously, can you think of any time in history where you would rather live than right now?
I agree that things are better but unfortunately many people still buy the Pearl books and follow the Pearl method–both for child rearing and for relationship advice. It’s very sad and depressing. 😦
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This means that tomorrow will be even better than today because there is still a lot of room for improvement. 🙂
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Isn’t it great we are not in 1963 any more? Seriously, can you think of any time in history where you would rather live than right now?(Clarissa)
Its interesting how often people think they live in the best time ever. 🙂
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Yes, psychological health is fascinating.
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Aint that the truth, as we see it. 😉
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I wrote about a ballad in which a princess who is pregnant with her brother’s child either dies in childbirth, kills herself or is shot by him. I’m still not sure which one:
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So if women are doing so much better than men can we now actually do things that lend a hand to men outside of feminism that doesn’t result in protest, claims of sexism, and declarations that it would silence women?
Cuz I’m a bit sick of seeing articles that say women are doing better than men and articles that say women are the ones that need support.
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“So if women are doing so much better than men can we now actually do things that lend a hand to men ”
– What might such things be, for example?
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Birth control options
Address the higher rates if suicide
Working with guys on proper emotional healing
….
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“Birth control options
Address the higher rates if suicide
Working with guys on proper emotional healing”
– These are all worthy issues. But what makes you think women are somehow better suited to solving these specific issues??
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@Clarissa
Well, the majority of feminists are women and I sure hear a lot about how feminism can and will solve all our social problems, so, maybe you and the others can address Danny’s listed concerns.
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You guys are hearing a lot of stuff. 🙂 🙂
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I lend a hand to men by being honest with them. If they are doing something strange, like projecting their emotions into me, I let them know. Who knows, they might have use for those emotions some day? Don’t give them all away like that.
If they think that it is my moral responsibility to change the world, I let them know that I am only human, like them. I won’t do it because I’m not that powerful, but also because I have other responsibilities that use my time.
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– These are all worthy issues. But what makes you think women are somehow better suited to solving these specific issues??
That wasn’t to say that women are better suited for those things. I said that in regards to being issues that everyone could also work on.
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Of course, this is true.
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Come on Danny, as a man, shouldn’t you be wishing its 1963?
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If he did, he’d be on Michael Moore’s website.
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No but I’ve been told tthat as a man I apparently want to go back to something called the “good old days”.
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Sociability is the enemy.
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Arent these still the good old days danny, afterall the patriarchy is supposedly still alive and kicking, lol. 🙂
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I’ve had quite a bit of fun today with a game/interactive story called Save the Date. I really, really don’t want to spoil anything, so if you have a free hour or so I’d recommend you give it a try.
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The Wall Street Journal operates in an alternate reality.
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The funny dramas of the very rich. . . 🙂
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The post about humanities enrollment is really interesting, thank you for linking it!
I wonder what happened in the 1970s that made so many people opt for other degree programs?
(What I’d like to know that the article doesn’t cover is at what time the biggest non-humanities majors came into existence. Like, computer science is a relatively young field, dating from the mid-20th century — or mid-XX century if you prefer — and I imagine fields like psychology, sociology, social work and other social sciences aren’t super old either. I also do not know when people started offering undergraduate degrees in business — that’s always a popular choice of major. So what I would like to know is, does the decline that blogger identifies in the 1970s have to do with the emergence of a lot of new areas of study that began to draw away students who might otherwise have studied the humanities?)
A commenter there also makes the valuable point that it was during the 1970s that colleges were becoming coed, so women weren’t restricted to the women’s colleges, which maybe had fewer major choices outside the humanities than men’s colleges.
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Thanks for the link. And here is a video I just recently made, which finally nails an issue I had not been able to articulate for so long. It regards a key point of misunderstanding by Western critics of what I call African shamanism:
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This is a great video. I had to think about it but I think I get the concept of fighting for the right to exist as opposed to the idea that everybody exists already in a final state.
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Oh! Thank you so much. That means a lot, coming from you. It really is a fundamental issue, and unless one understands the world view, one will impose a cultural lens that really distorts the writings of people like Marechera.
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With regard to the Hugo Schwyzer thing, it might have been true in the eighties that women were working to extricate themselves…. It is no longer true, I think,
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I agree COMPLETELY!!!
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Pretty sure the NSA thingy is nothing new to folks around here… But have you seen this bullshit on twitter?
It is quite amusing to see so many people go pants-on-head stupid and actually support their government spying on them…
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Also, while I am already at it, have you seen this? https://medium.com/thoughts-on-society/a1345b36b91b
I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.
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