Academia

It’s the end of a long, hectic semester, and it is time for a University of North Dakota story. Stories like these, that are passed down from generation to generation, are part of what makes our campus a special place: Many years ago — some say the 1950s others the 1920s or 1930s or even… Read More →

Universities are ritual places. The academic year is punctuated by ritualized gatherings: convocations and commencements. We have ritualized titles such as “professor” and forms of address. At times we were funny, impractical outfits and arrange ourselves in largely arbitrary hierarchies meant to invoke historical order that communicates the mystery and traditions of learning. Universities also… Read More →

This year I’ve been enjoying the handwringing about the use of generative AI by students. It’s been exciting to see how people hardened into camps and how fierce the “debates” have become. I’ve even come to enjoy the sometimes cloying moralizing that characterizes the “Never AI” camp and the techno-utopian imaginings of the pro-AI camp. … Read More →

As readers of this blog know, I’m intrigued by how AI has become the latest raw material for the outrage factory (on social media). To be clear, I’m not an AI apologist nor some kind of fanboy. I have found some of its capacities useful — especially for analyzing very large bodies of unstructured text… Read More →

I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions, but I do think that the end of a calendar year is a good time to reflect on what I can do better, more, or differently. Even if these musings only inspire a moment of reflection, then I think they’ve more or less served their purpose. My… Read More →

Every now and then (and often despite myself), I pick up one of those books that look to diagnose the problems with contemporary universities. To be clear, I am aware that these books are the academic equivalent to motivational books that populate airport bookstore shelves. Most of them — aside from some absolute classics that… Read More →

I have been invited to participate in a panel today on the public humanities and that always gives me pause. I don’t always consider myself a particularly good humanist and I sometimes wonder whether what we do in the humanities has only the most tenuous connections to things outside of academia. In other words, are… Read More →

Yesterday, I managed to finish draft of my book manuscript. Oddly, I don’t have a title for the book. Right now, I call it stuff like “The MC11 Project,” “something I’m writing on oil, photography, and the Bakken,” or “Workforce Housing” (and even sometimes Work Force Housing). Not having a title is a relatively minor… Read More →

This semester I’m thinking about three things that I’ve struggled with in my teaching over the last few years. Attendance. I’m getting pretty tired of students with irregular attendance habits. I know that this reflects the increasing complexity of student lives. I also know that most students who struggle with attendance are not lazy or… Read More →

One of the Things That I Want To Do (but probably won’t) is to get into a better notebook discipline. I’m taking two notebooks on my trip to Korea: an A5 and B5 size Leuchtturm notebooks. My plan is to use the larger notebook to document my trip and carry the smaller one for quick… Read More →

This time of year, my mind wanders and I invariably begin to think of things that I really want to do, but also know that for all kinds of reasons, probably won’t do. 1. Mini-book series based on some of my random essays. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been enamored with the simple… Read More →

Over the last year or so I’ve been trying to add a bit of analogue to my largely digital workflow. I’ve been thinking of it a bit like adding a tube-stage to a DAC, but unlike the largely impressionistic world of audiophile, there seems to be a growing body of research backing the idea that… Read More →

This summer I’ve been trying to limit my blogging to a few times a week (excluding my “Foto Phriday” feature. Slowly, but surely, I’ve started to feel pressure to blog more and my discipline and focus have started to falter. My excuse is that is very hot here in the Corinthia and I’m getting excited… Read More →

I had a fitful week of reading last week, but I managed to read a bit on flights and between classes, talks, concerts, and brilliant architectural tours. Thing the First Glenn Peers’ relative new book Byzantine Media Subjects (2024) is really good and there is a lot to unpack in the potential of applying media… Read More →

It feels like as good a time as any for a Three Things Thursday: Thing the First I’ve been thinking a good bit about fragments lately and also about writing, and I’ve become more and more worried about my own fragmentary writing habits. This semester, in particular, I’ve started to take 45 minutes here, 30… Read More →

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, but I do buy into the idea that the start of the new year is a good time to reflect and set some goals for the next year. I have five things that I want to accomplish this next year. Some are contradictory and some don’t make sense, but… Read More →

Over the past few years, I’ve been editor of a little, century-old, book series for ASOR: the Annual. From time to time, I get asked whether a proposed title would be appropriate for this series. My general response is “sure!” A brief perusal of the series’s history shows that we’ve published all kinds of things.… Read More →