| Rethinking Thin |
[Jun. 22nd, 2008|07:38 pm] |
Every once in awhile I read something that takes everything I thought I knew about a topic and completely stands it on its head. I found a book like that this week; it’s called Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata, a science reporter for the New York Times. The thesis of the book is that most of the things we think we know about weight loss and obesity have no real scientific basis.
( Read more... )
Reading Rethinking Thin makes me kind of grateful to be in medieval studies instead of medical research. You never really hear of medievalists defecting to the dark side and founding lucrative snake oil empires based on theories that can’t possibly be true, but it happens all the time in medicine. On the other hand, maybe we’re missing a golden opportunity. Maybe we could have our own line of weight loss products. We could call it the Feudal Revolution Diet and we’d claim that the secret to keeping pounds off is to get ergotism. Exercise tips would be gleaned from martyrologies and penetentials. We could even sell a line of dodgy saints’ relics as supplements. Now there’s an idea... |
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| Hart House range |
[Aug. 2nd, 2007|03:36 pm] |
I'm finding the University of Toronto's decision to close the shooting range at Hart House rather ironic, in light of this promotional video for the School of Graduate Studies.
Apparently, hitting people with broadswords in Hart House is a charming way to attract students to the university. Hitting paper targets with bullets is frightening and dangerous.
The problem with holding a position like the one that the U of T administration is currently maintaining is that you end up agreeing with the gang-bangers that guns are all-powerful and confer upon their owners the ability to intimidate others. My own feelings on firearms have been evolving over the last few years. Nowadays, I tend to think that we could use a few more programs like the Hart House shooting club, where level-headed people can teach others exactly what guns can and cannot do. I think that would help take some of the mystique out of gun culture. |
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| On bears |
[Jul. 14th, 2007|04:55 pm] |
There's an interesting article on black bear behaviour in the Star today.
My favourite lines come towards the end: "In one experiment, [bear expert Dr. Lynn Rogers] made a grad student run from a very angry, charging mother bear. The student tripped over a tripod and, instead of eating him, the bear did some pretty impressive gymnastics to avoid touching him."
Makes History research assistantships sound a little dull, doesn't it? |
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| The fascist octopus sings its swan song |
[Jun. 19th, 2007|04:53 pm] |
Oh dear, this is what happens when academics fancy themselves to be literary stylists.
"Like many concepts, then, ritual is the multilayered product of a longue-dureé diachronic stratification. As such, it carries within itself the baggage of its early geological history. It is one of the main theses of this essay that the roots of our contemporary concept(s) reach down, with complicated subterranean trajectories, into the humus of the Middle Ages, and that this engenders methodological problems when one wants to apply these concepts to medieval sources."*
I think I'll go wash out my mind with some bad fan fiction now.
* I know I should cite the source, but under the circumstances it just seems kinder not to. |
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| Pet Peeve |
[May. 21st, 2007|06:43 pm] |
Is there a rule somewhere that says Thou Shalt Not Include a Concrete Noun in Thy Lecture Title? Often I look at anouncements for talks and think WTF is that going to be ABOUT?
If I could justify wasting the time, I would create a random CMS lecture generator. It could plug words into templates like "The [abstract noun] of [abstract noun] in [text or region]," or "[Abstract noun] and [abstract noun] in [text or region]." Then, whenever someone needed an idea for a paper, they could click a button and Presto! they'd have "The inversion of liminality in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale" or "Textuality and consensus in Merovingian Gaul."
Is it hopelessly undergraduate of me to wish that once in a while someone would hold a talk about concrete people, objects or events? |
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| A book I want |
[Mar. 22nd, 2006|03:16 am] |
Some time back, I stumbled by accident on Gerald Graff's book Clueless in Academe and found that it explained really well why some of my students were crashing and burning on their essays. Basically, the kids know how to research and write, but the whole process of structuring an academic argument is alien to them.
Now I see that Graff and his wife Cathy Birkenstein have written a guide to rhetoric for students called They Say/I Say. I wish I had a lot of money; I'd hand out copies of it when I give back my current crop of essays. Better yet, I wish I'd been teaching from it before the essays came in. |
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