Po’ Girl “Bloom” from Palestra Creative on Vimeo.

I can’t be surprised at what seems to be a note of bitter cynicism in “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go,” a recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Thomas H. Benton. I don’t think that the general public is quite aware of the destruction done by the last generation or two of university administrations, especially in the liberal arts. It’s the same sort of violence against the public good that’s been done by corporate leaders in the last two decades, but it’s even more hidden in plain sight, if such a thing is possible.

It’s such a hassle to use your health insurance that half of the time you don’t. If you’re sick in any…

I’ve been mulling over a conference presentation I’m doing this Spring (Computers and Writing 2010) and I was happy to find that some current research has confirmed a set of ideas that I’ve had for a while. Or, rather, they confirm that some basic ideas need rethinking. It’s a kind of cliche in my field to say that students know more than their teachers about technology. In fact, what I have observed is that students know different things about technology or even different technologies than their teachers.

A recent Pew study (“Social Media and Young Adults“) confirms this in several ways, noting, for example, that teenagers rarely use Twitter. The study also confirms the importance of fads…