Scientia imperii decus et tutamen est First, let's interrogate the truth apparently proposed or implied in the titular question. Would it not be more accurate to state: it is believed that academics read lots of books. Is this true? For many undergraduates the notion that their Professor has read more than fifty books secures her a place in the same league as Wittgenstein or Dr Johnson. Far out! Strange! A living geek-book. So, the revered state of being widely read is a relative judgment. But let's grant that academics do 'read' rather a lot; perhaps more than average, perhaps excessively . For teachers in the arts, and in the social sciences, academic books are their primary tools and resources. Text is a living laboratory. Surely they spend every moment of their lives reading . That is to say, they might entertaining the possibility of reading in those great vistas of time the yawn like chasms between teaching, assessing, writing, and generally administerin...
A recent article argued that Social Media should be banned for those under 16. Outrage! What are the warning signs that we have been imprisoned by our screens? Is it possible that the addiction to social media could be harming our physical, mental and spiritual world? I would be the first to admit that there are worse activities such as mindlessly TV channel-surfing.But I have noticed the addiction in others ! You all make so many excuses for spending so much time online. For many people this is not a cause for anxiety at all. We are increasingly cyborgian, and any wish to return to the old ways (3-5 years ago) is nothing but a futile, hopeless and romantic nostalgia. Having allocated myself a timetable that now stipulates a progressive increase in my time away from the screen I have noticed an improvement in my general health and sense of well-being. Perhaps the experience of having recovered from cancer last year has led me to rethink the primacy of direct interacti...
Anamitra Roy’s recent ‘film’ Memories of a Dead Township (2012) expresses clearly the concept of existential angst but it also avoids falling into the trap of the student film maker's addiction to ambiguity and bleakness as merely self-indulgent ends in themselves. We sense that there is a difference between philosophical games and hard thinking . But in his latest intriguing film he is also presenting a sense of home that is always slipping away, and needing to be deconstructed and reconstructed. It is home as absence of home. But it is not just another exercise is postcolonial deconstruction theory . For Anamitra Roy there are two aspects to the issue of community. One is practical and economic; it is a case of voice and aesthetic survival: “I need my voice to be heard. It’s better to sing a chorus than shouting alone in the street. We didn’t even have money to submit to any international film festival till this year. So, if I have 10 friends to watch m...
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