Most Read from past 24 hours






The anguish caused by gun violence in America and the frustrations of the debate about it are enough to make a president weep. Between a passionately defended “right to bear arms” and the demand for “gun control” there seems to be no accommodation. Yet perhaps there is. Following President Obama’s tearful New Year resolution to
READ MORE
I have a very fat file in my computer of crazy things that have happened in my professional life as an academic. Colleagues saying and doing stuff no one outside of academia would believe; encounters with students convinced they knew more about my work than I do; and classes, speakers, and other campus events so
READ MORE
Readers of Jane Austen’s novels recognize the plot that informs every story, the business of marriage that determines the future happiness of each eligible woman. Whom will Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Emma Woodhouse in Emma, Anne Elliot in Persuasion, Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, and Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility
READ MORE
If we’re truly honest with ourselves, we would recognize news ultimately as a form of gossip. Who’s having business trouble? Which actress embarrassed herself? What do the elite think about fashion? Some of it is valuable, but most of it is merely entertainment for us. As such, salacious accusations of misdeeds get “clicks”. Beyond generating
READ MORE
After taking a hiatus from watching news programs for a while, a friend of mine recently turned on MSNBC. Following this experience, he said something along the following lines: “I’m done. I just can’t take it. The news cycle is continual repetition over and over again.” His statement recalled something I read while paging through
READ MORE
Edward Bernays, considered by many to be the father of modern propaganda, opens his famous book Propaganda by stating: We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. Of those men “we have never heard of”, Bernays writes: “Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of
READ MORE