Tag Archives: elitism

Quiz Time! How diligent a reader of Rethink are you?

Before you yell at me for being more arrogant than usual, let me just say that I was asked to do this, and that even I couldn’t get all these questions exactly right unless I looked up the answers. This is for fun, to see how much I remember throughout the years, and obviously I’m …

December 13, 2008 – 5:00 pm | By ashok | Posted in blogging, education | Tagged | Comments (3)

Lament.

At the bookstore yesterday I read a chapter or two of Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation, which is much livelier, forceful reading than his blog. His most important claim, that our unparalleled access to knowledge is coeval with a culture of decadence which allows the construction of entire worlds around our purely adolescent selves, has …

November 20, 2008 – 10:31 am | By ashok | Posted in education | Tagged | Comments (5)

First Friday in Philadelphia, 11/7/2008: On Schubert’s Quintet D. 956, Op. Posth. 163

1. It’s been two weeks, but I felt I could wait for the sake of saying an appropriate thank you to the Poor Richard’s String Quartet – Michael Finckel, Thomas Kraines, Andrea Schultz, Beverly Shin and David Yang – who played in Christ Church that night. I’m no good at writing music criticism, so I …

November 19, 2008 – 4:51 am | By ashok | Posted in music, personal | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

“Doing” Something for the Republican Party Instead of Whining has yielded this Extended Whine

As some of you know, I’m toying with the idea of starting another blog, one where I and some team members look for Republican candidates across the nation, profile them, maybe interview them, and then link readers to their site so they can show some support. I, of course (*clears throat, puffs out chest*), think …

November 8, 2008 – 7:19 am | By ashok | Posted in blogging, personal, politics | Tagged , | Comments (0)

No kidding.

I don’t feel like reading Xenophon and writing a line-by-line commentary right now. What I want to do is write the most elegant flashy essay packed with a new reading of American history and its themes that will make us all perfectly rational voters eager to read Plato at the drop of a hat. I …

October 24, 2008 – 7:03 pm | By ashok | Posted in personal | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Slowly.

If I had one word to describe these recent days, this would be it. Meeting new people, writing the dissertation, working through poems – that’s how life is going, moment by moment, and sometimes it plods. In some ways, I mind. I want this dissertation to feel like it is writing itself. I want more …

September 25, 2008 – 7:39 pm | By ashok | Posted in personal | Tagged | Comments (2)

Re: Manners and Silence

This posting in the Telegraph on our lack of silence raises several deep questions, including ones about manners, but doesn’t do so in a condescending way: Perhaps we shouldn’t read too much into The Sun and its night at the opera. Applauding after each aria may not be the done thing, but it is not …

September 16, 2008 – 2:32 pm | By ashok | Posted in politics | Tagged , | Comments (5)

Bookstore

There’s a new Barnes and Noble open near me. I’ve been walking there nearly every day to read, although I carry my own books. Always the dissertation text and one other book – the recent one has been Heidegger’s “Introduction to Metaphysics,” for obvious reasons. It’s comfortable there: well-lighted, nice furniture, fitting temperature. But the …

September 13, 2008 – 11:02 am | By ashok | Posted in personal | Tagged , , | Comments (6)

Build your own list: What must people majoring in the humanities and liberal arts know?

I was just thinking the other day that I nearly forgot everything learned at Rutgers. While I was exposed to lots of awesome things, I never really had the chance to put it all together and make sense of the whole. This post is a prompt – I’m interested in what you think people should …

August 19, 2008 – 2:34 am | By ashok | Posted in academia, education | Tagged | Comments (3)

For New and Old Readers – Some Housekeeping Issues and Various Musings:

This site will probably undergo several design changes before I settle on a theme I really like and is easy to maintain. Jennifer and Hazel have been hugely helpful with their input, and I’m sold on two concepts: This site requires a strong graphical element. Ideally, I would like to show off the work of …

August 3, 2008 – 4:12 am | By ashok | Posted in blogging, love, personal | Tagged , | Comments (3)