My blog post today is a fascinating essay by Isaiah about writing, rhetoric, and Winston Churchill, which was published in the Atlantic in 1949. I find it a rich think piece that works, I think successfully, to rescue Churchill from his critics. Here's a link to the original. He starts with a vicious attack on … Continue reading Isaiah Berlin on Writing, Rhetoric, and Churchill
This post is an essay by Len Gutkin that was recently published in the Chronicle Review. Here's a link to the original. The essay does a great job of capturing the essence of a new form of discourse on American university campuses he calls the "hyperbolic style" -- which he characterizes as "breathless, declaratory, at … Continue reading Len Gutkin — The Hyperbolic Style in American Academe
This post is a piece by David Brooks that was published recently in Atlantic. Here's a link to the original. It's all about the art of humblebragging, which is rampant on twitter and other social media platforms but which has been a core skill for many years among academics. The whole point of humility display is … Continue reading David Brooks — On the Art of Humblebragging
This post is a paper I presented at a conference in Zurich in 2007 and then published as a chapter in the 2011 book, Schooling and the Making of Citizens in the Long Nineteenth Century: Comparative Visions, edited by Daniel Trohler, Thomas Popkewitz, and David Labaree. Here's is a link to the corrected proofs of … Continue reading Citizens and Consumers — Evolving Rhetorics of US School Reform
In this post, I explore the issue of the different ways in which people give reasons to each other. It draws on a lovely little book by sociologist Charles Tilly: Why? What Happens When People Give Reasons...and Why. One of the things that makes his account valuable is how it gives scholars a way of … Continue reading Tilly: Why? Different Ways that People Give Reasons — and Lessons for Scholars
I’m reposting today one of the greatest speeches ever given, from that master of rhetoric, Frederick Douglass, which I originally posted last year about this time. It demonstrates the power of language to make arguments and change hearts. In a time like ours, when rhetoric is used to promote the worst social ills, it’s … Continue reading Frederick Douglass’s 1852 Speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
In the last two weeks, I've presented some my favorite brutal book reviews. It's a lot of fun to watch a skilled writer skewer someone else's work with surgical precision (see here and my last post). In the interest of balance, I thought it would be right and proper to present a review that eviscerates … Continue reading A Brutal Review of My First Book
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 