January 31, 2012, 11:18 AM ET

Was Cynthia Nixon Right? Are We Made, Not Born, That Way?

I was lucky enough to go see Cynthia Nixon perform in "Wit" this past weekend. Nixon's performance is so really and truly superb that it is not till you're walking out of the theater that it hits you that this woman, a cancer survivor herself, does this incredibly painful hour and 45 minute death scene night after night after night. I left wondering just how one person could withstand so much emotional, gut-wrenching, tear jerking and yet simultaneously funny performance. But Nixon's role in "Wit" might be a walk in the park compared to the heat she has taken this past week for having the nerve to suggest that, for her, love is a choice, not biological destiny. In an interview in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Nixon said

...for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain...

Tenured Radical's Strange Ideas About Policy

In the State of the Union and again in a speech at the University of Michigan last Friday, President Obama laid out a new higher education agenda. As I wrote at The New Republic, it's an ambitious and welcome plan that's important less for what policies are likely to pass Congress in an election year (few) and more for setting the parameters of future debate. Naturally, the higher-education lobby hates it, because that's what lobbies paid to protect incumbent interests in accountability-free government money are paid to do. I also note that Chronicle blogger Claire Potter, aka Tenured Radical, hates it too, in a way that, while not very convincing, is interesting to examine. Potter says that "Obama is proposing to create a larger pot of money to withhold from institutions and systems that have not implemented neoliberalism quickly enough." I don't work in academia, so I'm always... Read More

January 30, 2012, 05:26 PM ET

How Do You Greet Your Colleagues?

Let me rephrase that: When you see them, do you greet your colleagues at all? I would like to think that there are charming colleges where faculty members not only brighten up and smile when they see each other, but actually stop to shake hands, chat and exchange pleasantries. But I also like the idea that there are still houses with thatched roofs. I know that it’s simply not practical in this contemporary, hectic and increasingly impersonal world. Thatch isn’t very practical. Pleasantries don’t advance your career. But somehow knowing that both of these once existed makes me slightly nostalgic for the past—even if my idea of that past might resemble a fairy tale world that never really existed in the first place. I’m not asking for hootenannies or pot-luck fondu dinner parties. It’s just that when I started teaching that the University of Connecticut in 1987, there was a coffee...

Defining Sexual Harassment

John Chadima, the senior associate athletic director at the University of Wisconsin, resigned this month after allegations surfaced that he sexually harassed a student, by pulling off the student’s belt, thrusting his hands in the pants of the young man, and then threatening to fire him if he told. To some, this might sound too familiar, like an echo of Penn State’s controversy without the ghastly shower scenarios of Jerry Sandusky and little boys or coach Fine and his alleged molestation of teenagers at Syracuse. As inappropriate as Chadima’s conduct was—plying the student with alcohol after a night of drinking in his hotel room at the Rose Bowl—there are important differences. The student, referred to as John Doe in the Wisconsin investigation, was over 21, and not a little boy or teenager. How much older than 21 we do not know. According to the investigation, the... Read More

January 28, 2012, 11:26 AM ET

Monday's Poem: 'Lemon Tree,' by Jennifer Atkinson

after Agnes Martin Tilled snow Plucked arpeggios Of revery rungs Laddered for zero The inverse of music Undelirious lines Correggio’s Unchecked hand Minus the background Noise of content The aftereffect of citrus Scent and the curious Dryness left On your hands When you pare The fruit opens © by Jennifer Atkinson. Printed by permission of the author. Jennifer Atkinson is the author of three books of poems, The Dogwood Tree, The Drowned City, and most recently, Drift Ice. Her fourth collection, Canticle of the Night Path, is due out in Fall 2012 from Free Verse Editions. She teaches creative writing at George Mason University in Virginia. The Chronicle's poetry blogger, Lisa Russ Spaar, notes: The eidetic lyricism of Jennifer Atkinson’s poetry owes in no small part to her limned verbal restraint and passionate sparseness. An almost sacred silence...

Lose Those Monkeys!

Certain images have astounding Velcro properties; they stick. Regrettably, however, their stickiness seems to bear little relationship to their validity. Case in point: The oft-repeated notion that if you had an infinite number of monkeys banging away randomly on an infinite number of keyboards, eventually they would produce all of Shakespeare’s plays, word for word. This is literally true, if you take the word “infinite,” well, literally, and if you take “eventually” as meaning “given unlimited time.” It’s an old idea, traceable by some as far back as Aristotle (like just about everything else). By 1939, the saying went that “a half-dozen monkeys provided with typewriters would, in a few eternities, produce all the books in the British Museum," to which Jorge Luis Borges added, "Strictly speaking, one immortal monkey would suffice." And strictly speaking, he too was... Read More

January 27, 2012, 05:02 PM ET

Obama's Right: The Cost of Higher Ed Is Not Sustainable

Speaking before an audience at the University of Michigan, President Obama said it was time to rein in the cost of a college degree. The president even went so far as to suggest tying federal aid to universities, such as Pell Grants, to a school's ability to keep its costs down. Needless to say, if I may mix religious and rural metaphors, once you tip the sacred cow, people get panicked. It is impossible not to raise tuition, we are told, especially with states cutting back on what they’re giving to higher ed. Maybe that’s true; maybe it’s not. I would suggest we look at the schools not dependent on state funding (but still often very dependent on various forms of federal monies for higher ed, whether in the form of research funding or student grants and loans) to see whether or not it is possible to re-imagine higher ed. Indeed, it is time for all colleges and universities to... Read More

January 26, 2012, 06:16 PM ET

Scary Black Man (Oops, I Mean the President) Threatens Governor

You know how we liberals are—always looking for ways to play the race card? Well, I've held back, but today I'm here to play it. For Tea Party sorts, the image of Arizona Governor Brewer shaking her finger at President Obama on the tarmac at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport must be satisfying. There she is, one of their faves, getting the better of the president. You don’t have to hear the words they exchanged to know that the governor's wagging finger meant she was chiding him, and, in an image sense, she handily won the exchange. Now consider the words the governor used to describe the encounter to the media afterwards. She said (you can watch it for yourself—it’s toward the very end of the video), “I felt a little bit threatened, if you will, in the attitude that he had, because I was there to welcome him.” After watching it three times, I still kept thinking, Did I hear he... Read More

January 26, 2012, 05:45 PM ET

Victoria Regina Imperatrix

On our recent trip to England, Lizzie and I dashed into the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. It was close to closing time, so we had only a few minutes to hit the highlights—the Ambassadors, the Turners and Constables, the Air Pump, and of course the Execution of Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England for but nine days and then decapitated when Bloody Mary took the throne. I would not want to say that the last-named is a great painting, but somehow it does capture the imagination—the young girl going to her death because the other side prevailed in the struggle for power. The next day, with more time and planning, I spent a few hours around the corner, in the National Portrait Gallery. Now, if you visit London, that is something not to be missed. There is a terrific collection of portraits, from about the Tudors on—all of the greats, kings, queens, statesmen, writers,... Read More

January 25, 2012, 07:30 PM ET

Neologists of the World, Unite!

Several years ago, my fellow Seattleite, the brilliant socio-sexual provocateur Dan Savage was so fed up with Rick Santorum’s hateful, hate-filled denigration of homosexuals that he conducted a contest to define the word “santorum.” He succeeded, beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. (To appreciate the magnitude of Savage’s savaging of Santorum, go ahead and Google “santorum.”) That particular success has been so notable—and the remaining GOP presidential candidates so deplorable—that I cannot resist trying to extend what Dan started. There is no way that I or anyone else can improve upon the regnant definition of “santorum,” so I’ll leave the former senator to wallow in his well-deserved moniker. Moreover, I’m under no illusion that anything comparably brilliant or effective will emerge from the current effort, but surely Messrs Gingrich, Romney and Paul... Read More