Shades of Gray

First of all, my apologies for the title: I thought it irresistibly appropriate, but unfortunately and unintentionally reminiscent of that awful series of potboiler novels. . . My aim is to try to broaden this attempt at dialogue initiated by Professors Goldfarb and Zaretsky in their point/counterpoint into a multifaceted conversation ...
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Standing on the Barricades

Returning to Gray is Beautiful Last year I announced my intention to write a series of posts for the PS Commons (we’re now calling these “letters”) around the gray is beautiful theme.  Predictably, things got in the way. I did write soon thereafter on controversies surrounding Israel/Palestine and Turkey/Kurdistan.  But then ...
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Adjusting the Lens on Rape Culture

Notably absent from Zaretsky’s idyllic depiction of the college campus as an outpost of sexual freedom and experimentation is any discussion of the role of the drug and alcohol culture in such settings. Zaretsky’s campus thrums with intellectual and cultural exchange -- as he says, in classes, athletic and cultural ...
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O.O.P.S. vs M.O.O.C.s: Midterm Report, Part 1

“The proponents of M.O.O.C.s (Massive Open Online Courses) look for the magic bullet, hoping to find a technological solution to the crisis in education. The O.O.P.S. (Open Online Public Seminar) project is to use the new technology, the potential of the web, to extend education’s promise.”

With these words, I closed ...

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