A Midsummer’s Nightmare; a Midsummer’s Hope
Every so often, the hashtag #confessyourunpopularopinion shows up on Twitter. Here’s mine: I don’t like A Midsummer’s Night Dream. I find it tedious, predictable, and dull. It is probably the most...
View ArticleThe Wisdom of Minerva?
As I was in the midst of preparing my fall syllabi, the latest issue of The Atlantic arrived in my mailbox, informing me that college is doomed and that Minerva, a San Francisco start up, is “the...
View ArticleBad Books Promiscuously Read: A Reflection on Assigning Objectionable Texts...
hen we set rules about what can and cannot be read, we may indeed be shielding students from falsehood and sin, but are we not also limiting the ways that they can learn to distinguish what is true and...
View ArticleTruth, Beauty: Why I Teach Beautiful Poetry
When we look at the world through the eyes of measurements and data, we think about how we can use the thing we are measuring. But when we look at the world through eyes that see its beauty, we lay...
View ArticleRape and the Christian University (Part 2)
Yesterday, I posted a few thoughts on the nature of rape. Today, I want to turn to the question of what we can do to stop this phenomenon of rape on our campuses. Just like my previous post, these are...
View ArticleDo Androids Worship in Electric Temples? (Part 1)
Science fiction has a deep and abiding interest in religious matters. But why this interest? And what makes science fiction qualified to address it in a way that will profit our students?
View ArticleDo Androids Worship in Electric Temples? Part 2
This is the second part of a two-part series on an interdisciplinary course I taught with a colleague this semester: Do Androids Worship in Electric Temples? Science Fiction through the Lens of...
View ArticleIllumination
Throughout the coming year, as Spring Arbor University hosts a Heritage Edition of The Saint John’s Bible, I’ll be posting reflections on specific illuminations both here on Christ and University and...
View ArticleAlan Jacobs on Trigger Warnings
Earlier this summer, I started a post about trigger warnings. As I combed the internet doing research, I stumbled across this gem by Alan Jacobs. In this post, Jacobs talks about guiding students...
View ArticleHumility in Teaching
What was making Intro to Literature rocky was not my students, it was my own ridiculously lofty dreams for the course. This is a good reminder that humility is an underappreciated virtue in teaching.
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