Cornel West’s New Book

I just got a new book to read today; yes, I need to finish writing and marking exams, but I think I will enjoy this recent book from my favorite scholar.
According to the publisher:
New York Times­ best-selling author Cornel West is one of America’s most provocative and admired public intellectuals. Whether in the classroom, the [...]

Death of a Library

I visited my campus library today to chat with our librarian about a video set I use in my classes. While visiting, she and I discussed our shock at what the Cushing School is doing. Note, the Cushing school is very old, very elite, and to an extent — very traditional school. They have a [...]

Ann Coulter: She Hates Public School Teachers

I am ashamed to admit that I wasted ten bucks on this book on CD, but curiosity got the best of me. Ann Coulter is clearly the most pessimistic person in the media; she is not happy. According to her in The Church of Liberalism:
Liberals love to boast that they are not religious, which is [...]

Faculty Diversity and Schools

Above: Sam Mendazibal of Bolivia and the chairman of the Foreign Language Department chats with me after playing  basketball with students during a recent campus retreat.
I received an email today from a group looking to organize a sub meeting on independent school campus diversity; one of the topics to be addressed is that of comfort [...]

Black Intellectuals

I constructed the above bulletin in the room that I teach in; I wanted to present to my students a list of works and authors that they might or might not know. This is clearly not an exhausted list. And, it represents authors often ignored by teachers. Black scholars have a very important case to [...]

Slavery by Another Name

I am currently reading Slavery by Another Name : The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. The author, Douglas Blackmon, concludes that slavery really emerged after the Emancipation Proclamation.  I addressed this some before in a piece on democracy and race when I stated this: In Karl Marx’s historical [...]

Book: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

As early summer approaches and my classes have come to an end, I have been debating on what to read.  I contemplated Lionel Trilling’s Matthew Arnold, but then concluded it would be a bit much for an early summer read; it is a monster of a work. I will read it by the end [...]

Good Luck Phil Sinitiere

Today is a big day for my friend and colleague Phil Sinitiere; he will be defending his doctoral dissertation at the University of Houston; Phil’s research interest centers around race and religion. Phil and I are working on a book that looks at WEB Du Bois’s writings and artistic depictions and placing them in a [...]

Required Readings for ‘09-’10 and the Trouble With History Teaching

With the exception of Richard Hofstadter’s The American Political Tradition, I have elected to add three new books to next year’s Advanced Placement United States History course; I am a big fan of Howard Zinn and his writings. Some believe his historical approach is a bit biased, but I contend what work is not. Because [...]

Book: God’s Harvard

I hope to start on this work soon. I am behind on my book count since the semester started. A friend of mine who also teaches sent this book to me saying:”it is a worthy read as you reflect and write about the historical processes of schools.” He is referring to my work on race [...]

A Great Book I am Reading (A NYT Review)

I found The Age of American Unreason published in the New York Times Review of Books. I am really excited about this work and more than curious to see why historians are calling it the completion of intellectual thought unfinished by the late Richard Hofstadter. His The American Political Tradition is one of his most [...]

Another Reading of West’s Race Matters and the Christian faith

It was during my senior year in high school when Karlyn Hunter introduced me to the thinking and writings of Cornel West. I believe I have read Race Matters some 10 – 12 times since high school, and I guess 13 times if you count tonight. West, who is a self proclaimed Chekhovian Christian [...]

I Am Hussein Too

You have got to watch and hear this; it is sad. Funny, but I am currently teaching my students about Richard Hofstadter’s class and economic thesis on the construction of the United States Constitution and why the framers feared the uneducated masses. It is a good thing they are dead and cannot watch this clip. [...]

Books for the European History Syllabus

The following books are works that take a much more narrow path towards collective historical analysis vis-à-vis European studies; however, they can be extrapolated to address political, social, and economic matters during a particular periodization. Students tend to find the following works enjoyable to read. The following works at one point have been a part [...]

New Book addressing the History of an Elite Boarding School

I am off to Colorado State University until June 20th for the AP European History reading. I am looking forward to serving as a Table Leader for the very first time. While I am off reading essays by day, I hope to be very productive at night. I need to clean up a paper while [...]

Thoughts on Ed Blum, W.E. B. Dubois, Toni Morrison, Race, Sex, and Black Literature

I recall reading Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye for the first time in high school; in it, Morrison took on similar issues as W.E.B Du Bois did in The Quest for the Silver Fleece. Ed Blum addressed Du Bois’s character Zora, whose interest in the white Madonna’s whiteness and purity created some comparison to three [...]

What Would Du Bois Say?: A Response to Hitchens and Dawkins by Edward Blum

I am writing a comparative essay reviewing both Edward Blum’s religious work on W.E.B. Du Bois and that of David Lewis. This paper, in the end, will be more than just a comparative review, but an analysis of two great authors. I will share more on this later. Below is an essay that Blum published as a [...]

Ralph Ellison: One-Hit Wonder

In an attempt to get caught up with some of my daily readings, I found myself speed reading through a number of back issues of the Economist and the Chronicle of Higher Education. While doing so, I came across the July 27th issue of the Chronicle Review that published a story about Ralph Ellison as [...]

Summer Controversy and Debates: God, Books, and Atheism

A Little Rock, Arkansas colleague e-mailed me this article by Peter Berkowitz which was published in The Wall Street Journal back in July. This article emerged when I told Bryan that I was very curious about the debates surrounding Chris Hitchens’ book “God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” I have been reading articles [...]

Teaching History

I have a list of things that must get done today. I leave to do some work at Colorado State University in a couple of days, so I hope to complete the acceptance and rejection letters for students who are looking to take an Advanced Placement or Pre-Advanced Placement course next year. Also, as director [...]