diversity
Education: Between Two Cultures
Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Sun, 06/22/2008 - 5:30pm.An interesting conversation has broken out, at several different places on Serendip and beyond, among (so far) two scientists, three humanists, and several college students of whom at least one has yet to declare an identity. Among the things that make it interesting, to me at least, is that it isn't actually about the two cultures per se (see also Two Cultures or One?), but rather about experiences teaching and learning in different contexts - with the intriguing suggestion that humanists might have something to learn in this regard from scientists and vice versa.
In Conversation with Richard Hornsey's "After the Bathhouse; or, In Praise of Awkwardness"
Submitted by Jessy on Sat, 05/31/2008 - 6:03am.When I was shelving some journals today (yesterday, now), I stumbled across a special issue of English Language Notes (v. 45 no. 2, Fall/Winter 2007) entitled Queer Space (and there's a special issue of Social Text that I want to look at, too, called What's Queer About Queer Studies Now?).
Richard Hornsey's piece "After the Bathhouse; or, In Praise of
Awkwardness" raises some interesting questions for me. As I start
writing, I've read about 7 of 12 pages. I will put summarizations of
Hornsey's points in regular text and my own comments and reactions in
italics.
Creativity, Brain, Indeterminacy
Creativity, the Mind, and the Brain:
From Van Gogh to Indeterminacy and Beyond
Geetanjali Vaidya
December 2007
This paper was prepared as a senior thesis in
biology at Bryn Mawr College, and is made available to encourage
continuing explorations of the nature and significance of of
creativity. Comments and continuing discussion are welcome in the on-line forum at the end of this paper.
East vs. West: A book commentary on "The Geography of Thought"
Submitted by Mahvish Qureshi on Fri, 05/16/2008 - 11:51am.The Blogging Genre: Identity, Anonymity, and Consistency—Why We Blog
Submitted by Christina Harview on Thu, 05/15/2008 - 4:25pm.Recently, a new
genre has been receiving the attention of internet users: the weblog. Using
blogs, we can filter out the facts of our offline world and develop a new online
external identity. This paper will discuss the nature, use-value, and appeal of
this online external identity, discuss the importance of the consistency of the
external self-both online and offline, review the relevance of the unverified
information in blogs, and talk about how anonymity affects the way we perceive
our own identity. Additionally, I hope to shed some light on the blog as an
emerging genre and talk about what the blog's worldwide success reveals about
human nature and psychology (and vice versa).
The Blog
Memory Distortion and its Connection to Reality
Submitted by nasabere on Tue, 05/13/2008 - 8:14am.
Memory
Distortion and its Connection to Reality
"Memory is the scaffolding upon which all mental life is constructed."
–Gerald Fischbach
The Geography of Thought- Book Commentary
Submitted by Rica Dela Cruz on Mon, 05/12/2008 - 4:29pm.Whenever someone tries to compare or analyze the underlyingbases for the culture and customs of different races or groups of people, theperson making the comparison or analysis almost always runs the risk of beingcriticized for what appears to be “generalizations” as to why certain groupsbehave, act and think the way they do. It is, therefore, very important for aresearcher doing a study on human behavior, such as a people’s way of thinking,to define at the outset the scope of the study being made and the methodologyto be used.
Thinking Differently: Differences Between Men and Women
Submitted by K. Smythe on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 2:10pm.
Autism: A New Look at Consciousness
Submitted by Emily Alspector on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 11:38am.Autism: A New Look at Consciousness
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Submitted by Emily Alspector on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 11:35am.
Aside from the
beautiful and charismatic style which makes the procession through The
Diving Bell and the Butterfly absolutely enthralling, complete appreciation
of this book requires an acknowledgement of the implausible efforts of its
creator. It is rare that a book can be inspiring based not only on the content
of the writing but also on the process of its creation. Jean-Dominique Bauby
does not explicitly give details about his condition, nor about how he went
about writing this book. This seems to be the main theme of the book: it is not
why, but how. He does not want the reader to know much about his accident or
the painstaking method of communication he has been forced to resort to, but
