“Teach like you do in America!” is the default instruction I receive when teaching overseas. I have heard it in Germany, Tanzania, and last summer in China. It is the default instruction by my hosts who assume that university classes are “about the same” everywhere in a globalizing world. What can I say? It ain’t completely true, and I wrote 4,000+ words to make this point in Palgrave Communications, a new Open Source journal.…
Binge Watching Ted Talks
While writing my dissertation, my routine goes something like this most mornings:
- Stop at the local pastry shop and get my favorite morning pastry: slightly warmed spinach crustada.
- Drive to my office at the university.
- Circle for a few minutes to find parking.
- Hope I don’t hit any of the bicyclists who drive the wrong way on one-way streets.
- Park.
- Walk to my office.
- Say hello to my colleagues.
- Find my office.
Almonds in the Desert
August 2nd, 2015
This is the principle reason why California has a water shortage: agriculture where it shouldn’t be. One side of the freeway is the natural, unirrigated terrain; the other side is irrigated almonds. We should never be growing luxury crops in desert climates.
We’re in the San Joaquin Valley. There’s no natural source of water here, like in Chico; these almonds have to be watered about three times the amount of the trees in the northern Sacramento Valley.…
Globalization and Mlitary Honor: The Dedication of a Statue of the Hmong General Vang Pao in California
I stopped by the dedication of the new statue of the Hmong General Vang Pao at the Chico City Hall near my university on Saturday. General Vang Pao led the Hmong forces which were allied with the United States during the “Secret War” that the CIA conducted in the country of Laos between about 1960 and 1975. Several hundred thousand Lao Hmong were brought to the United States between 1975 and about 1995 in acknowledgment of their status of as American allies during the Secret War.”…
Is There Humor Hiding in the Translations of Bourdieu or Weber?
There’s an interesting discussion about how to translate Bourdieu from French to English at the Scatterplot blog. In English at least (I don’t read French), the translations of Bourdieu often seem circular and confusing. What Steve Valsey seems to be asking is, is this really necessary? His answer is no, and he offers a translation of Bourdieu’s definition of habitus in more “standard” English. As one of he commenters on the blog notes, similar questions can be asked of Bible translators.…
Shared Governance or Managed Dissent at Chico State?
The demand for civility effectively outlaws a range of intellectual, literary, and political forms; satire is not civil, caricature is not civil, hyperbole and aesthetic mockery are not civil nor is polemic. Ultimately, the call for civility is a demand that you not express anger; and if it was enforced it would suggest that there is nothing to be angry about in the world.” –Michael Meranze
Finding parking near Chico State is a pain in the ass.…
Who is the Greater Threat to Reading in the Academy? Aggrieved Students, or Budget-cutting Administrators?
Aggrieved students find books dangerous; neoliberal administrators say they’re useless. I’d take the former any day
Corey Robin is a political science department chair from New York. He finds that bottom-line focused higher education administrators to be a greater risk to an educated society than aggrieved students. He has a provocative essay in Salon “Higher Education’s Real Censors What We’re Missing in the Debate over Trigger Warnings and Coddled Students.”…
How I Spent My Summer Vacation (and Other Stuff)
It was 53 degrees this morning where I live at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Fall is in the air, which is nice because with the drought going on it’s been a long, hot, and breezy/dry summer in our woods and it’s still fire season, at least until we get our first good rain. While I have been here in northern California goofing around with my dogs, hiking, writing poetry, and clearing brush, Tony was writing stuff for the blog, and traveling throughout Germany and in Thailand and China; Marianne was busy with her dissertation work and being a mom and gardener (her tomato pictures on facebook looked really good!).…
The Tattooed Professor Has Some New Year’s Resolutions for Academics
The Tattooed Professor (AKA Kevin Gannon) has some New Year’s resolutions for academics and they’re so good, we wanted to tell you about it. We like the Tattooed Professor here at e.com, we think he’s cool and provocative; I like him because he is direct, something we working class people value. This time, the Tattooed Prof offers some kind words for you professors beginning your academic year. He wants you to be mindful and committed to a “better academe” because lord knows, higher education is fraught at the moment.…
The Psychobiological Nature of the Human Being, Going Back to School, and the Nature of ‘Manpower”
University classes start on Monday, and once I again I resume my task there of creating students who are “disciplined” to the “seamless into the demands of bureaucratic production.” To do this, we will adjust their very psychobiological nature as a human being to the demands of the university. There will be demands put on them to show up on time, study on their own time without direct supervision, and write papers about esoteric subjects of my choosing.…
What is More Important in a University, an Assessment Plan for Nebulous Learning Outcomes, or a Climbing Wall?
Anyway, my kids knew where the Climbing Wall was when they attended a private Liberal Arts college. Somehow they never came home and told me about the Student Learning Outcomes that were presumably on their course syllabi. There is a very engaging article by Erik Glibert “Does Assessment Make Colleges Better? Who Knows?”
I have to finish my course syllabi for Fall 2015 this week, and will dutifully put on the Student Learning Outcomes of various programs because doing so is relatively harmless. …
Basic Human Decency and Death by Hanging in Britain’s Colonies
Every once in awhile, I’ll revisit George Orwell. Last week it was for “Shooting an Elephant,” when I lectured here in Thailand about the nature of ethics and state/political power. The essay is great for teaching about the nature of state power, in this case using 1920s Burma where Orwell himself served as a British colonial police officer for several years.
But shooting rogue elephants peacefully eating by the side of the road was not the only thing that Orwell wrote about, or was called to do.…