A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
This week we're going to take a detour into understanding the structure of academia, in particular the different kinds of 'professors' and their academic ranks in the American system, with a particular focus on 'non-tenure track' faculty (which is to say, as we'll see, 'most teaching faculty.') This is intended as the first in a … Continue reading Collections: Academic Ranks Explained Or What On Earth Is an Adjunct?
So I stirred up a bit of conversation on Twitter last week when I noted that I had already been handed ChatGPT produced assignments. For those who are unaware, ChatGPT is an 'AI' chatbot that given a prompt can produce texts; it is one of most sophisticated bots of this sort yet devised, trained on … Continue reading Collections: On ChatGPT
Fireside this week, the first fireside of the new year! There might be a few more of these than usual over the next few months as I am continuing to work on my book project, but have to balance that with unexpectedly teaching a course on US Naval History, which is of course quite a … Continue reading Fireside Friday, February 10, 2023 (On Academic Freedom)
A bit of an editor's note before this post, since this is going to involve some 'inside baseball' for Classics and some necessary background (also, this is not going to be a 'family friendly' post due to the subject matter; reader discretion is advised). The following essay is one I wrote very early in July … Continue reading Miscellanea: What’s the Problem With Antigone?
Happy Holidays to everyone, however you observe them! I normally take this week off every year but since we had the whole of last month off and I had some things I wanted to expound on, I thought I would do a Fireside instead. Percy getting into the holiday spirit. In particular, I want to … Continue reading Fireside Friday, December 23, 2022 (W(h)ither History)
I generally try to avoid having Twitter disputes spill on to the blog. Generally what happens on Twitter is best left on Twitter and in some cases not even that. However this past week I was pulled into a Twitter debate with Noah Smith about the validity of the way that historians offer our knowledge … Continue reading New Acquisitions: On the Wisdom of Noah Smith
Fireside this week! The Spring semester is now in full swing and - knock on wood - so far seems to be proceeding without too much in the way of disruption. I'm hoping to have part II of "Decline and Fall?" for you all next week but in the meantime I wanted to take a … Continue reading Fireside Friday, January 21, 2022 (On Public Scholarship)
Graduate school application season is upon us and so I wanted to take this as an opportunity to talk about it. Every year, I talk with undergraduate students who are considering pursuing a graduate degree in the humanities, who mostly come to me because they know that my graduate school experience was relatively more recent … Continue reading Collections: So You Want To Go To Grad School (in the Academic Humanities)?
This post is now available in audio format here. Note from the Editor: This week, Michael Taylor joins us to present A Defense of Classics. The last decade or so has seen Classics (the study of Mediterranean antiquity or more narrowly the study of Greece and Rome) in a hard sort of quandary. On the … Continue reading Meet a Historian: Michael Taylor on Why We Need Classics
Fireside this week! A little break after wrapping up our look at Europa Universalis IV. The next things coming up on the blog are going to be a look at who the Romans were and who they thought they were and an extension of our examination of EU4 into one of Paradox's other titles, Victoria … Continue reading Fireside Friday: June 4, 2021