Humanist Reason

Coming out in February 2021 from Columbia University Press, Humanist Reason is a book in three parts: (1) a history of the modern justifications of the humanities; (2) a philosophical genealogy of those justifications, and an argument for their dismantling; … Continue reading →

Shakespeare and the 99%

Leaving aside the fact that the first comment is from someone who’s still angry about the fact that people think Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s plays (which is fun but too “age of the internet” for me), this review by James Shapiro … Continue reading →

The Future of the Literature Curriculum

I just came back from Calvin University, where I had a great couple days visiting classes and discussing the curriculum with the faculty there. Like many programs in literature, they have been losing majors (the creative writing and linguistics majors … Continue reading →

Travel/Talks 2019-20

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the site; then the old code built into WordPress broke and I’ve spent the morning fixing it. But… victory, so a time to update some talk and travel and teaching news, all coming … Continue reading →

Peter Janich, What is Information?

Translated by me and the fabulous Lea Pao, this book by the German philosopher of science known for “methodical constructivism” is now available in English from the University of Minnesota Press. Lea and I added a couple sentences that weren’t … Continue reading →

Travel/Talks 2018

A few talks coming up: April 5-6 is a conference on Poetry and the World at the new UVa Center for Poetry and Poetics. I’ll be talking about the blazon, and totality. I’ll be giving a talk, “Why Humanists Should … Continue reading →

Teaching 2017-18

So this year I taught the video games class again (300 students this time). Evaluations were ok… not as good as last time, and I think I know why. I basically did more of what some folks liked last time … Continue reading →

Travel Plans, 2017

I will be giving talks (on worlds) in Dublin on May 11, and in Munich, probably May 23. Otherwise no conferences or talks planned for the Spring. I will not be attending the ACLA (in Utrecht) or the MSA (in … Continue reading →

Teaching, Spring 2017

Teaching two classes this semester, a graduate class on Derrida (syllabus) and the usual undergraduate class on video game culture (syllabus), this time with 400 students, a new record. I had planned to make a bunch of changes to the … Continue reading →

Center for Humanities and Information

So one of the things I’ve been up to that I’m really excited about and proud of is Penn State’s new Center for Humanities and Information, which has just started up this year. The best thing (well, one of the … Continue reading →