January will mark the 10-year anniversary of Christopher Hitchens’ famous (notorious?) essay, “Why Women Aren’t Funny.” In the impolite article, Hitchens, as only he could do, delivered a devastating exposé explaining the causes behind “the humor gap.” The article enraged female comedians and sparked a slew of indignant (and unfunny) letters to the editor. Looking back,
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In a recent Intellectual Takeout piece, Daniel Lattier pointed out that colleges are now having to deal with incoming “book virgins”. To gain admittance to college in the 17th century, students had to be able to read and translate various Latin authors on sight. 100 years ago, students were required to have read various classical works
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Two hundred years ago, there arrived in London the first group of Muslims ever to study in Europe. Dispatched by the Crown Prince of Iran, their mission was to survey the new sciences emerging from the industrial revolution. As the six young Muslims settled into their London lodgings in the last months of 1815, they
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I was once called a “cracker” by a member of the Nation of Islam. It was in the mid-1980s and I was driving through Washington, D.C., in the kind of neighborhood that conservatives call dangerous and liberals call “transitioning.” I saw a member of the Nation of Islam, bow tie and all, on the corner
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In recent years we’ve given students the following message: go to college at all costs. If you can’t afford it, take out student loans. It will be worth it in the long run. Many believe that this message has led college costs to rise at an astronomical rate, a jump which economist Mark Perry describes
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Romeo and Juliet is not the only Shakespeare play that the modern world, modern critics and modern teachers get wrong. Truth be told, Shakespeare abuse is rampant. Just about every play is being mistaught and misrepresented. Romeo and Juliet is, however, taught more often than most, probably more often than any other of the Bard’s
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