When I turn over the pages of a calendar for the new year, I  feel as if I'm reading a book no one else has ever read.

Who knows where we will be next January 2nd? How many of us can remember what we did last year on this date?

Do you remember what you hoped for and feared back then?  
 
Many of the big troubles are the same: We are still sending troops overseas, parts of the world are recovering from catastrophes initiated by nature and made worse by greed, those in pain from their bodies and their minds are kept from finding the help that could free them because they can't do the paperwork, raise the money, or bring themselves to admit the need. Parents lie awake wondering whether their children will be  all right; children put pillows over their ears to stop the noise of  arguments. Fearful and alone, some want only to know that they will not be abandoned; frantic and overwhelmed,...

1. The Rising States of Obamaphobia

2. 5 Things Professors Don't Know, Part 2

3. More Drivel From 'The New York Times'

4. Cleavage and the Job Market

5. Oops! I Didn't Know It Meant That!

The staff of The Chronicle Review wishes you a happy and safe New Year!

* ' "Klaatu barada nikto" is a phrase originating from the science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).'

I am team teaching (with a very bright young colleague in our terrific department of religion) an undergraduate course on science and film. We start right off with Jurassic Park, and by eight o'clock next Wednesday night will be deep into discussion not just about the scientific feasibility of getting DNA from insects in amber, but about the portrait of...

MLA members are easily recognized, like NASCAR Dads. On my way to Philadelphia, I spotted a couple in the Grand Rapids airport, then several more in Detroit. By the time I arrived on Market Street, between Loew's and the Marriott, it was an MLA Mardi Gras, with ID-badge lanyards instead of beads.    

Apart from the well-known sumptuary regulations requiring that conference-goers dress primarily in black, white, navy, and gray, there were no obvious fashion trends on parade this year. No spiky shoes; no spiky hair. There were even fewer Foucault-clones: The glasses were less teeny; the heads less shaved. Depending on the panel -- and not just ones hosted by the Radical Caucus -- one could almost detect a proletarian feeling, given the number of blue jeans and old sweaters.  

Even so, something about MLA people seems dour, almost hostile, to strangers, even though we are members of the...

I know this is the holiday season when I should be thinking cheerful thoughts, but I have been brooding about the recent New York Times story on allegations of executive corruption at the Stevens Institute of Technology. The Institute’s president, Harold J. Raveche, is accused of excessive compensation and inappropriate borrowing from the institution to maintain vacation homes. The New Jersey Attorney General claims to have found “extensive misconduct” on the part of Raveche and the institute’s board of trustees, while the Internal Revenue Service is investigating matters relating to the president’s compensation.

The charges, if true, suggest a long-term pattern of fiscal mismanagement at Stevens, but we’ll have to see what the investigations prove. Whatever that may be, this apparent scandal is reminiscent of similar malfeasance at American University and Adelphi University. Even if...

Blogging is about instantaneousness, but there are times a blogger has to sit on something before knowing what’s bothering her. About two months ago, The Chronicle Review ran a question-and-answer forum entitled, “Are Too Many Students Going to College?” Nine experts in higher education -- drawn from economics, political science, public-policy analysis and career counseling -- responded to such questions as, “Who should and shouldn’t go to college?” and “At what point does the cost of going to college outweigh the benefits?”

The experts offered a variety of oftentimes conflicting opinions. Postsecondary education (especially that which leads to a B.A.) correlates with higher income, although there are some who think this correlation won’t last much longer. The best jobs of the future will require going to college, but some believe the B.A. degree is inherently worthless. Individual...

What a difference a decade can make. Little more than 10 years ago, graduate students and contingent faculty had little representation at the MLA. They felt disrespected in countless ways. The prevailing attitude among the tenured faculty was that "the cream rises to the top," and, if you can't find a decent job, you have no one to blame but yourself."  There was no sympathy for complainers. 

The crisis reached a peak in 1998 when the Graduate Student Caucus -- aided by Cary Nelson and Michael Bérubé, among several other faculty allies -- were able to draw the attention of the MLA membership to such matters as the erosion of tenure and academic freedom, the shift from full-time to part-time positions, and the shameful wages that were paid to adjuncts throughout academe. Suddenly the coverage of the MLA convention shifted from mocking ever-so-trendy paper titles to debates over whether a...

I suggested to a friend that these four quotations, pulled from what might be called "varying" sources, all had a substantial connection -- subtle, perhaps, but substantial. He couldn't see it; he said no one else would either. I think he's nuts. Don't you, dear reader, see the pattern?

Please say that you can pull one thread through all of them, or maybe even two. There might have been a few dollars (and/or pounds) wagered on your response, not that there's any pressure. Go on; give it a whirl.

A baby strives to tune in to his parents, but he cannot judge their goodness. He attaches to whoever is there, with the unconditional fixity we profess to require of later attachments: for better or worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health.  Attachment is not a critic: a child adores his mother's face, and he runs to her whether she is pretty or plain.  And he prefers the...

Writing for Positive Liberty, libertarian D.A. Ridgely critiques "That Old College Lie," an article I recently wrote for Democracy arguing that the key to holding down college costs in the long run is to increase transparency in the higher education market. Says Ridgely:

I think Carey has a point regarding the data resulting from various recent attempts at objectively measuring academic achievement at the university level, the point being that such data should be available for public consideration. But I mean “should” in the sense that the schools should as an ethical matter release the information, not that government should require its release. And, of course, I disagree completely with Carey’s calls for more government spending and more government regulation of higher education.

I have a fair amount of sympathy for the libertarian perspective. But stuff like this makes me wonder if ...

If people are looking for films to watch at home during the holidays and cannot bear another sighting of Meryl Streep, Matt Damon, Nicole Kidman, Leonardo DiCaprio . . .

A few years ago, to commemorate the 100th anniverary of cinema, the Vatican compiled a list of 45 great films, dividing them into categories of "Religion," "Values," and "Art."  (The list is here.)  A few selections will make Chronicle readers smile, such as Ben-Hur, Chariots of Fire, and It's a Wonderful Life. It chooses Little Women from 1933, not realizing, I guess, that the chracterization "Lovingly sentimental" is a fault, not a virtue.

But it also contains Wild Strawberries, 8 1/2, Intolerance, Citizen Kane, The Bicycle Thief, and other film-school standards. It calls Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc "the most convincing portrayal of spirituality on celluloid." It summarizes La Strada perfectly in one...