Feigning Competence and Teaching Government
Here is a little article I wrote on the connection between higher education and civic engagement. It refers to a longer and more solid article written by…
Here is a little article I wrote on the connection between higher education and civic engagement. It refers to a longer and more solid article written by…
As a professor of political science, I can’t help but be concerned with all the enthusiasm about “civic engagement” as some radically transformative, disruptive, “Copernican” revolution in…
American society is in trouble, and not only because our traditional values and institutions are under siege. The nuclear family is crumbling as a result of government…
Free speech in a university is a very different thing from free speech in Congress or Parliament, freedom of the press, or free speech in the street. Each…
Milfred and Hands play audio from and comment on last week's debate between Trump booster Stephen Moore and never-Trumper Max Boot on the UW-Madison campus. Free speech…
Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasure of an Intellectual Life. Zena Hitz. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. While reading Zena Hitz’s new book Lost in Thought: The…
The general goal of my Introduction to Political Studies class is for students to develop the capacity to think critically and insightfully about political reality. Thus, they…
The fourth and final subfield I cover in my Introduction to Political Studies class is Comparative Politics. This subfield is the most problematic and difficult for two…
Having considered politics from above from the Socratic perspective, and from within from the perspective of my students own regime, Canada, we now move slightly outward, to…
After considering the “big picture” questions about politics, my first-year students turn to the study of Canadian politics (in the U. S., this subfield would get covered…
In my previous posts, I explained how I try to introduce the activity of politics to students. Following my “great books” approach to introducing political science, I…
In my last post, I outlined some of the challenges in teaching an introductory class in political science. In this and the next few posts, I shall…
Teaching my university’s first-year Introduction to Political Studies (Poli 1000) is a challenge. In fact, it’s the most challenging course for me to teach. The students taking…
Introduction: Mythic Consciousness and Philosophy Philosophy is commonly misunderstood as one subject among many that you might take up in school; it is often confounded with whatever…
Ivan Illich (1926-2002) was a one-time Catholic priest, Austrian philosopher, and anarchist social critic of various forms of professional authority. His foremost critique of modern culture was…