There are over a quarter of a million students at the City University of New York. That’s twice as many as there are in the entire Ivy League. And they come from almost… Continue reading →

A lynching runs through my family, though not as I long imagined. Yes, my great-grandfather, Sheriff John Sullivan, failed to stop the lynching of Seymour Newlin. But the story is not so simple,… Continue reading →

Alice Walker’s sly and perceptive narrator in “Everyday Use” reminds me of my grandmother, though the woman in the story is poor and African-American while my grandmother was white and, by the time… Continue reading →

Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
There’s a short piece on Inside Higher Ed today that says the Long Island University at Brooklyn administration will lock out faculty members starting at midnight “unless the…

Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
When I first heard the term “Digital Humanities” a decade ago, it seemed like something brewed up for use by those who want to poison the humanities—still does.…

What follows is the draft of a chapter of a book I am working on, one based on my experiences as a 16-year-old in 1968. This chapter covers the most dramatic events in… Continue reading →

One thing I’ve always adored are fading traces of the past. Togo, when it was Togoland, was a German colony (that changed in World War I, when it was split into now what… Continue reading →

Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
What’s the point of having academic credentials if you can’t use them? Sure, we make them into bludgeons inside the ivory tower, but that’s really just child’s play:…