Historian Robert Irwin reviews two books critical of Edward Said's Orientalism. Irwin's own critique received positive and mixed reviews. In this brief interview, Said explains what he was trying to do in Orientalism.
posted by ibmcginty on May 24, 2008 - 8 comments

The Feel Tank. "We are a feel tank, but this does not mean that we do not think. We are governed by outrage that the desires and demands for a less bad life and a better good life continue to go unrecognized."
posted by papakwanz on Feb 7, 2008 - 25 comments

Professors Gone Wild! Real Professors, Uncensored & Out of Control! [via]
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear on Sep 26, 2007 - 43 comments

Hardy-Littlewood rules. Hardy's to-do lists are cool too, BTW.
posted by jeffburdges on Apr 14, 2006 - 11 comments

Stanford iTunes is a service from Stanford University that allows the public access to free speeches, lectures, forums, and more via iTunes. Want more academic audio content? Check out the University Channel at Princeton or the Havens Center at UW-Madison.
posted by trey on Oct 21, 2005 - 38 comments

MIT students pull prank on conference. "In a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference." The paper's title? "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy."
posted by adrober on Apr 14, 2005 - 24 comments

Stand on the shoulders of giants. Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.
posted by fvw on Nov 18, 2004 - 49 comments

Ginsberg's Celestial Homework is the reading list Ginsberg handed out on the first day at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics as "suggestions for a quick check-out & taste of ancient scriveners whose works were reflected in Beat literary style..." Founded in 1974, Ginsberg taught at the school until his death in 1997.
posted by Satapher on May 21, 2004 - 16 comments

Tales of academe Newly-minted Ph.D.s describe their varied experiences on the academic job market. Most use pseudonyms. Many writers are remarkably bitter; some are not. Notable essays: the adjunct professorship as a career; teaching at a county jail; racism on the tenure track; and a series of columns by "Thomas H. Benton," who desperately tries to talk students out of entering graduate school, and then gives helpful advice to those who want to go anyway.
posted by Prospero on Mar 16, 2004 - 59 comments

The best high school in America? WaPo's Michael Dirda reviews Edward Humes' School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School.

Gretchen Whitney High is an incredible success ("People move to the Cerritos area so that their children can attend this school... And by move I don't mean from Los Angeles: They relocate from India, from Korea") story academically, especially considering its origins But there's always a price, typically exacted by the parents, who display the same good sense and no-pressure behaviors they've displayed at Little League and Pop Warner games. But no one's killed anybody over Whitney admission, at least that we know of. The story of Cecilia's art portfolio, though, will break your heart. Humes offers larger lessons, too, about how to improve our schools. I am buying this book today.
posted by mojohand on Sep 8, 2003 - 31 comments

College Rankings! Seems like everyone's talking about 'em. There's the good ole controversial US News & World Report rankings, but thanks to the the librarians at UIUC, this wonderful site has links to many, many, many different rankings, including ones that let you make your own rankings. There's also rankings of some of the more important non-academic features of colleges, too. Does college rank really matter?
posted by Jos Bleau on Aug 23, 2003 - 20 comments

The Unemployed Philosopher’s Guild began in 1992 when two students of philosophy found their inner creativity in the midst of a dwindling academic job market. As it turned out, fulfilling gift giving needs proved to be almost as satisfying as probing eternal questions. They offer such items as "Freudian Slippers", "Nietzsche's Will to Power Bars", "Brainy Beanies", and "Dorothy Parker Martini Glasses".
posted by ewagoner on Aug 11, 2003 - 18 comments

Advertising and Idealism Clash at Colorado University. Most schools have pro-advertising courses(which are offered in the Business School) and those that take an anti-advertising approach(which are typically offered in Media Studies or Communication). Given the complex nature of the advertising world, is there room for both types of courses? By cutting departments with a more practical bent, are academics further weakening MBAs?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy on Oct 7, 2002 - 7 comments

UW sells out -- for only $2.3 million. As part of the "Academic Innovation Alliance Initiatives" agreement with Microsoft, the University of Waterloo's Electrical & Computer Engineering department has agreed to teach C# to students. In addition to discussion on uwstudent.org, Slashdot thread, press releases from MS and UW and a rebuttal release from the UW Federation of Students.
posted by paulschreiber on Aug 14, 2002 - 20 comments

Univ. of Georgia applicants evaluated on the basis of academics only. Without regard to race, gender or country of origin. On the other hand, we have the UC system undertaking a more "comprehensive" system. Predicition: If this continues for 20 years, there will be a huge shift in the academic centers. The UC system will be regarded as a diploma mill, while schools like UGA, which implement tough, academic-based admission policies will be the leading schools of the country.
posted by prodigal on Nov 30, 2001 - 31 comments

Cornel West cuts rap album He's the king of black studies. There is none better. Sucka MCs can call him . . . professor! Sorry. The phenomena of rock stars trying their hand at acting, and vice versa, has never been pleasant. Now, celebrity academicians want- or at least this one from Harvard wants - to diversify? Isn't this talked about in the Book of Revelation somewhere?
posted by raysmj on Nov 6, 2001 - 14 comments

University campus communities are a logical place to give and receive support. Blood drives, counseling, vigils are occurring almost universally. Many university departments are sponsoring programs and panel discussions for the public on terrorism: a sort of rough draft of history. (See Princeton, Yale, JHU, and some with whom I have personal connection: UCSD (no annoucement online yet), Penn.)
posted by rschram on Sep 14, 2001 - 2 comments

Harvard Profs Can't Do Everything; For one thing, as seen by this article, they certainly can't rap.
posted by lowblow on Jun 14, 2001 - 4 comments

The market-model university: '...by looking at research on the health impact of tobacco, the "science" behind global warming or breast implants, or the effectiveness of a drug, we can see that it is not unusual for sponsored academics to fudge the data, suppress unfavourable evidence, and otherwise "torture the numbers till they confess"...'
posted by talos on Mar 15, 2001 - 7 comments

Net Music School Found a very cool site in Flash that provides online guitar and piano lessons over the 'net. They got a free lesson sections too.
posted by eggcreation on Nov 2, 1999 - 0 comments