February 2013 – Thinking about the Humanities

Darwin and Eliot and History*

February 22, 2013 Andrea Kaston Tange

My very smart academic friend, Sam Cohen, recently wrote at length about the difficulties of planning a course based on a particular historical moment in terms of the philosophical problems of making fiction stand for history. At least, that’s how I’m choosing to paraphrase a key point implicit in his great discussion of three things he wishes someone had told him a long time ago when he first started studying literature. In lieu of filling his comments section with a…

Of Academic Idealism

February 16, 2013 Andrea Kaston Tange

I want my students to be brilliant. I want them to make observations I haven’t thought of, and write sentences that make me smile just because they are so articulate, and draw connections that illuminate literary history. And in between those flashes of brilliance, I want them to be competent. And in the lulls between competence, I want them to be hard-working and recognize that there is always room for improvement. And when they are too busy to be hard-working…

In defense of making students study things they don’t always want to

February 6, 2013 Andrea Kaston Tange

I will be the first to admit that the student-as-consumer model of education that is touted by some university administrators drives me batty. This is not to suggest that I think that the needs and goals of students ought to be irrelevant to how we plan our classes or what we teach. Far from it. However, the model as it is propagated by much of the admin-speak that seeks to optimize university educations and lure students in often implies that…