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3mins
The "Marketplace of Ideas" author suggests steps American colleges can take to become more ideologically diverse.
This Thursday, April 29, Big Think will be interviewing Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., a.k.a. Perez Hilton, in Los Angeles—and we're giving you, Big Think readers, the chance to contribute questions […]
4mins
The "problem of general education" haunts any college trying to design a core curriculum, but standardizing across schools is a poor solution.
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Whether we’re in postmodernism, post-postmodernism, or some other phase, one thing we’re not in is cultural decline.
4mins
The kind of literary criticism that Lionel Trilling practiced, which assumed that national literatures reflected deep national values, is dead now.
1mins
The audience that the New Yorker critic has in mind is "somebody who’s like yourself, but in a completely different discipline."
28mins
A conversation with the Harvard University English professor.
"The need for Americans to enter the arena has never been greater," write Bob and Elizabeth Dole. They write in favor of Theodore Roosevelt's idea of "robust citizenship."
Researchers have discovered a deep-ocean current carrying frigid water rapidly northward from Antarctica along the edge of a giant underwater plateau. They call it a climate change "fast lane."
A new biography of writer Irène Némirovsky, author of "Suite Française," rejects the idea that the Jewish author, eventually killed by the Nazis, was anti-Semitic.
Hoarders have "a sense of intense responsibility for objects and an unwillingness to waste them," says Randy Frost. They also have an ability to find beauty in things that other people might not appreciate.
Scientists have gotten a better understanding of the molecular mechanism by which humans sense temperature. The findings could lead to new therapies for acute or chronic pain.
"With all the uncertainty and anxiety these days over landing a job with a steady paycheck, more job seekers are finding it harder to resist fudging on a résumé or job application," writes Anna Prior.
The Army is seeking proposals for a sophisticated human scent detection system that could “uniquely identify an individual,” at a geographical distance, or after several hours or even days.
Politicians and military brass warn that America's poor diets and lack of exercise have now become a danger to homeland security. Daniel Engber says this argument is "hogwash."
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has amassed a $12 million fortune in the past year. She is "a singular national industry," writes Gabriel Sherman.
"Too much debt is always dangerous," write Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. It's dangerous when the government is borrowing from foreign governments, as well as when it does from its own citizens.
I recently wrote an opinion editorial in the Wall Street Journal about the recent eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano. This eruption was a bit different than most volcanic eruptions in […]
I would like to thank everyone who has been so enthusiastic about being part of SCI-FI Science: Physics of the Impossible on the Science Channel. We have been floored by […]
It’s usually a tie between watching paint dry and watching grass grow for the title of most boring thing to do ever. Watching the paint dry and, more importantly, flow […]