News & Views

Of Margins, Refuge, and Struggle

April 13, 2019

This post began as a reflection on some ideas that Robin DeRosa offered in one part of her recent keynote address for the AMICAL Conference

Lessons for Higher Ed from the Survival of Independent Bookstores

March 24, 2019

Another day, another report of an independent bookstore … doing pretty well. After some apocalyptic years, indie bookstores have been having something of a resurgence.

The “Textbooks” Misnomer

March 8, 2019

The other day I explained to a student that the “cc” field in emails is a holdover from the days of typewriters, when a “carbon

What Price Academic Books?

February 24, 2019

Years ago, Amazon included bookmarks with their orders, and one of the bookmarks offered a loose translation of Erasmas: “When I get a little money

Methods of Life

February 18, 2019

from The Education of John Dewey: A Biography by Jay Martin: A child in Dewey’s school was instantly a member of a cooperative commonwealth. Learning and creating knowledge

Cruelty-Free Syllabi

February 16, 2019

This Inside Higher Edarticle about a particularly punishing course syllabus is extreme, but many college professors have policies that are only slightly less extreme, though they may

Why They Can’t Write by John Warner

January 9, 2019

1. For a couple years now, I’ve made it a point to read John Warner’s blog at Inside Higher Ed at least every few weeks, and often

Pass No Pass

December 20, 2018

I’ve turned grades in for this term, so now am beginning to think about my first experience teaching Pass/No Pass courses. As I mentioned back

Choose Your Impermanence

October 30, 2018

I’ve always been attracted to the (highly romanticized) idea of monks hunkering down in out-of-the-way monasteries to save cultural artifacts from destruction by the vagaries

Matthew Cheney

Occasional Writings

For older writings, see the archive of my blog The Mumpsimus (2003-2023)

This page also includes posts originally published at my academic and pedagogy-focused blog, Finite Eyes (2018-2024)

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