Yesterday Elena Kagan proved what I’ve been saying all along:  If you give them an education and a chance at the microphone, women are funnier than men.

Kagan getting the last laugh at the expense of South Carolina’s Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was a moment that will serve as a landmark for women’s humor for years to come.

When Graham, rather lackadaisically, intoned, “Christmas Day. Where were you on Christmas Day?,” I must admit that I held my breath. Kagan began what sounded like a long, round-about, and detailed response concerning the finer points of law. Sure, sure, she’s being examined precisely on those finer points of law, but I knew that the Senator would go back—like a hound-dog to a chew-toy— to his Christmas Day opening bit.

He did. Graham, keeping the wearied tone, interrupted Kagan and drawled, “I just asked where you were on Christmas.”

That’s when I fell in...

I have my playlist going during dinner—my husband is away and my friend Karen is over for really fancy mac & cheese (I make it with gruyere, gorgonzola, fresh horseradish, chopped red onion, and Madeira)—and Karen wonders, in passing the salad dressing, why there are all these great songs about high school and none about college.

Why there were no good songs about college had not been a question keeping me up at night. It had not occurred to me before always-interesting Karen asked the question. Once she asked it, though, the rest of the night was shot.

Not that it wasn’t a fun evening—it was a riot. We always have an excellent time. It was simply that, throughout the organic spinach salad with fresh bacon and apple course, all we could do was look for lyrics. We dragged the laptop to the dinner table, pushed away the lovely candles and nice linens while keeping the good glasses...

The days are getting shorter. Okay, so on paper, maybe, they’ve just sort of flattened out, but since we’ve already had our solstice (and a great big “hi” to all my Druid readers out there!) as far as I’m concerned, the summer is practically over.

I can already hear time’s winged autumn fashions nipping at my nose, or whatever it is that seasons do as they speed by while I sit, motionless, wondering whether or not it’s actually worth getting up, climbing the stairs, and making all the effort required to change the kitty litter. Since I can perceive, shall we say, the litter box from an entirely separate part of the house, all indications are that it is, indeed, worth the effort. The cats themselves are holding tiny protest signs indicating unhealthy living environments (which, idiots they are, they’ve spelled incorrectly, leaving out the “n”) and the eldest one, Novella (she has a...

Maybe, just maybe, I coulda been a contender.

Maybe I coulda gone to law school, just like my father always wanted.

Even after I was promoted to full professor (at 40, my goal having been to achieve that appointment before menopause), my father would ask me if I’d consider getting a law degree just to “play it safe.”

Lawyers, like doctors, were, in my father’s estimation, the smartest and best-paid professionals in the world.

Everybody else, from politicians to paleontologists and Popes, were wannabe's who couldn’t bear the rigorous and fiercely competitive educational process required by these two genuinely prestigious career choices.

The truth? I was too scared to apply to law school, although I certainly thought about it. Every articulate girl thinks about becoming an attorney. Where else, we’re told, can you twin your admiration for Portia with your fondness for Porsches? Hey,...

I had an unproductive writing week. I blame Glenn Beck.

Let me explain.

The Chronicle ran an item on June 11 about how F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, first published in 1944 and now published by the University of Chicago Press, became Amazon’s No. 1 best seller when Fox talk-show host Glenn Beck recommended the book. 

Naturally I started to read about Hayek, about whom I knew ridiculously little, and then I fell asleep.

But when I awoke, I discovered that there was indeed a great deal to learn. I learned, for example, that George Orwell had reviewed The Road to Serfdom for the Observer in 1944. Since Orwell is on my syllabus (specifically, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, which teaches wonderfully, by the way, and makes a nice palate-cleanser between Woolf and Beckett, Sillitoe, or Spark). In his review, Orwell seems surprisingly sympathetic to Hayek’s position—in part because of the...

From My College Notebook: June 1976

Why do I always fall a little bit in love with my boyfriend's friends? I attach myself to a guy only to find his friends are his betters—or even if they're not really better, they're briefly, at least, more desirable. They become the man in my idle dreams, the one waiting until I've sorted myself out. Maybe I should say they're idling, idling like a car you leave running with the key in the ignition but one that's not going anywhere, just using up energy and rattling around while staying in one place. But then it'll happen. One night we'll start a real conversation when no one else is around, or it'll seem like no one else is around even because it's noisy at a party, so it doesn't even look weird to...

I love reading Ms. Mentor. She's one of my very favorite parts of The Chronicle and one of those columnists with whom I feel a deep sense of connection. Every time I read her always wise and sometimes snarky letters, I feel like I'm having a cup of coffee with her and wishing it were actually so.

I've always loved Ms. Mentor's books, Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia and Ms. Mentor's New and Even More Impeccable Advice for Women and Men in Academia. I love these books not only because the fabulous Nicole Hollander has done the covers but because Ms. Mentor, occasionally known as Professor Emily Toth, offers advice which is honest, funny, challenging, and easy to adapt-and by this I mean, you can pilfer her wisdom, passing it off as your own, and then in good conscience offer it to people in similar situations who pose impossible questions to YOU.

I'm mentioning...

OK, I did The Joy Behar Show last week, and I didn't embarrass myself, at least not entirely. Yes, I wore a Ferragamo scarf that made me look like I had a peach-colored tablecloth around my neck.

This was unfortunate since it gave me the unnerving appearance of having my head on a platter. All I really needed to be an appropriate entrée at a fine French restaurant was an apple in my mouth. Never mind.

Why do I begin by telling you what I was wearing? Because—and I know this is a shock—how a person looks is the most important part of being on TV. Once I wore a brightly colored suit on a show, and even the people who meant to be supportive of me declared that I looked as if I were dressed as a giant lobster, albeit a lobster with curly hair.

I like Behar and respect her work as a comic; I actually interviewed her for my first book on women and humor in 1991 when she was...

OK, this is down and dirty, quick and from a friend's computer in NYC, where I just taped a segment for The Joy Behar show which will air tonight. You know what it's like to do this kind of thing, right? You take an early train to the city—we're talking just after dawn—and then you change into grown-up clothes in the train station bathroom.

You show up, try to look good, sound smart, be witty, and you leave without having a clue how you did.

The guests and topics are chosen by the host and the producers. I'm an admirer of Behar's work and have been since she was doing stand-up at The Greene Street Cafe almost 20 years ago. I interviewed her for They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted and her remarks were by far the best things ANYBODY actually working as a comic said about women and comedy. I've followed the rise of her career with a genuine sense of delight—not only because...

1. The Short Man in History: Is the Napoleonic complex real? An examination of men under 5'6" who have influenced the social, political, literary, and economic landscape of the last 200 years in British and American texts. We will examine a series of such diverse figures as Tiny Tim, George from Seinfeld, Tom Cruise, the guy from Fantasy Island, Gary Coleman, and Mini-Me.

2. Nancy Miller's Father's Penis. Using Nancy Miller's seminal 1991 essay "My Father's Penis" as a springboard, this multimedia course will consider other significant paternal penii as they pop up in popular culture.

3. Human Resource and Beer-Pong Management. This course will review the human-resource-management body of knowledge and explore methods and practices related to the successful management of both daily and weekend beer-pong playing in the context of both university and non-university organizations. It...