In June 1979, I left Paris, returning home to San Francisco without saying farewell to Barthes. Why advertise my failure? I left Paris without fulfilling my reason for coming. His letter arrived in October. Barthes explained that he was retiring from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes at the end of the year. If I wished to complete my thesis under his direction, then I would have to have it written and in his hands by the 15th of December. No extension was possible. The date was a deadline. "A vous de jouer," he wrote. "Your move."

- Deadline [pdf] by Stewart Lindh, Roland Barthes' last doctoral student, is an account of how he wrote his Ph.D. thesis.
posted by Kattullus on Mar 18, 2012 - 28 comments

Frank Lindh, father of 'American Taliban' John Walker Lindh, explains why his son is an innocent victim of America's 'war on terror'
posted by MighstAllCruckingFighty on Jul 10, 2011 - 117 comments

She was destined to lead us.
One year ago today, Sweden got it's own 9/11 trauma. Foreign Minister Anna Lindh died by the hand of a madman.
posted by mr.marx on Sep 11, 2004 - 21 comments

John Walker Lindh, Hip Hop MC? Before John Walker Lindh became the American Taliban, he hid his whiteness, excoriating wack MCs on Usenet hip-hop bulletin boards. Attracted to Islam after listening to hip hop influenced by the Five Percenter movement, he later abandoned rap to denounce Nas as a fake Muslim. An interesting, but previously unexamined side to the American jihadist.
posted by jonp72 on Sep 3, 2003 - 13 comments

The Ballad of "John Walker's Blues" Not long after Lindh pleaded guilty to aiding the former Afghan regime, maverick country-blues musician Steve Earle released a controversial ballad, "John Walker's Blues," that has infuriated the American heartland with lyrics like: We came to fight the jihad, our hearts were pure and strong/We filled the air with our prayers and we prayed for our martyrdom/Allah has some other plans, a secret not revealed/Now they're dragging me back with my head in the sack to the land of the infidel.
posted by laz-e-boy on Jul 22, 2002 - 32 comments

U.S. Will Seek Life in Prison for John Walker: The Bush administration will charge American Taliban John Walker Lindh with conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens in Afghanistan and will ask for life imprisonment rather than the death penalty, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Tuesday . . .
posted by ryanshepard on Jan 15, 2002 - 22 comments