May 9, 2014
A Utopian Formation
One day this winter, we had a dusting of snow that shut down the campus for the afternoon. Here in Oregon not much snow is required to bring the city […]
December 25, 2013
Christmas, Festively
I’ve been thinking about a George Saunders story called “Christmas.” The narrator of the story is part of a roofing crew, a crew that includes a forty-two-year-old, down-on-his-luck, “gentle-voiced” man […]
December 6, 2013
Policing the Magical Real: Unarmed Man Shoots Two Women
Imagine this story. An unarmed man behaves erratically in the middle of the street, cars weaving around him and swerving to avoid each other. The flashing screens of 50 feet […]
December 2, 2013
Why Teach Literature Now?
Last week, I attended a session called “Another University is Possible–Right?” at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association in Washington, D.C. Since then, I’ve been ruminating on how […]
November 29, 2013
About the “Singularity”
To decide whether Kurzweil’s idea of the Singularity is “true” or an “accurate” depiction of our future is to mistake the nature of prophecy. Imagine someone in 1914 predicting the […]
September 30, 2013
The Poetics of Campus Security Alerts
Someone needs to write the book on a new genre of literature gripping the land. It is a short form; its characters are stock; its storylines nearly never begin in […]
September 23, 2013
Zen and The Art of Cover Letter Writing
The best insight I received about job applications came from a mentor who had led many search committees, who had seen the best candidates “on paper” simply bomb interviews, while […]
August 31, 2013
Not Guilty–Of Course
Out of the hurricane of words published in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, I found Robin D.G. Kelley’s essay, “The U.S. v. Trayvon Martin: How the System Worked,” to […]
August 26, 2013
This Is Your Writing On Drugs
Many writers would love to use words the way Alex Rodriguez plays baseball. And many have availed themselves of “performance-enhancing drugs” (PEDs), but writers’ culture is such that there will […]
August 10, 2013
Kindness and Attention (Part Two)
George Saunders’ year of wonders, which began with a New York Times Magazine cover story and has gone on to include a bestselling book and a much-discussed graduation speech, will […]
July 31, 2013
Life is Like a Comic Book
I was raised on comic books. I never read them, but I did flip through them, since my dad gave me one of those long white boxes full of them. […]
July 15, 2013
Confessions of a Book Killer
Last Wednesday, I killed a book. I doubt anyone will miss it–Microphotography for Libraries: Papers presented to the Microphotography Symposium at the 1936 Conference of the American Library Association. Bound […]