If he were still alive, Sigmund Freud might have been a Jeremy Lin fan. At the very least, he would have recognized what was going on when an ESPN.com writer used the headline “Chink in their armor” to describe the Knicks’ first loss since Lin took over as point guard. “A suppression of a previous intention to say something,” Freud wrote, “is the indispensable condition for the occurrence of a slip of the tongue.” ESPN offered an apology and fired the headline writer. But the slip of the tongue, one among a list of many other awkward and revealing moments that have accompanied ... Read More
Finding a New Gandhi in the Book ‘Great Soul’
August 2, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Is there anything left to say about Mohandas K. Gandhi that has not already been said? If the sheer volume of writing by and about Gandhi is any indication, the answer is a resounding no. Consider the section of any university library where the books on Gandhi are located. There is, first of all, the works of the very prolific man himself. His Collected Works — autobiography, political treatises, letters, newspaper articles — now run to more than 100 thick volumes. The sheer weight and often contradictory nature of his output is both an archival goldmine and a great challenge for ... Read More
The Picture for Men: Superhero or Slacker
August 17, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
At the end of the fourth season of the critically loved and chronically underwatched Friday Night Lights, the former football star Tim Riggins martyrs himself for the sake of his brother and newborn nephew. For much of the season, he and his brother Billy have been stripping down stolen cars and making the type of fast cash they cannot make legitimately. Tim wants the quick cash to fund his desire to buy a bit of sun-drenched Texas countryside, and Billy needs it for his new duties as a father. As the season finale starts, the brothers are talking to a lawyer and working through their ... Read More
The Crisis in Liberal Arts Education
July 29, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Consider an anecdotal piece of evidence on the crisis of liberal arts education in America. A student recently came into my office, seeking advice on whether to declare sociology or Asian-American studies as her major. I took a deep breath. The student explained that her mother preferred sociology because she recognized it as a discipline. She, on the other hand, preferred Asian-American studies because she liked the classes better. The career services counselor told her she was going about it the wrong way. Think about the type of work you are interested in, the counselor advised. The ... Read More
Outsourcing an American Education
May 22, 2010 • By • 1 Comment
There is a bill currently making its way through the Indian parliament — The Foreign Educational Institutions Bill — that would open up for universities in the West, particularly in the U.S., a massive English-speaking market. Massive is the key word. We're talking hundreds of thousands of Indian students reaching college age who are interested in an education that would allow them to better participate in a globalizing economy. At first glance, the passage of the bill, which is being pushed ahead by Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, benefits ... Read More