Most English academics suffer from ‘entertainment deficit disorder’, an inability to see that show business is their real job. To overcome this - and in doing so improve teaching - they should quit...
The aftermath of al-Qaida's attacks on the US is forcing the West to remember the Middle Ages - in particular, how pre-modern societies used individual religious affiliation to define a...
The lack of tragedy and moral ambiguity in US cultural forms leaves Americans naive about the the world, says Ken Hirschkop September 11 is commonly described as a national tragedy (a Google search...
The legendary anthropologist Clifford Geertz has long courted controversy with his views on hard scientific methodology. For him, lit crit and experience in the field are what count. Stephen Phillips...
Why not have a go at answering our Christmas literary quiz over the festive season. You could win a case of wine , or a book token if you are an overseas reader. The closing date for entries is 10...
Dove pie, roast swan, brains in wine, pig's trotters, Anglo-Norman finger food (for the toothless), 12th cake - Colin Spencer kicks off four pages of consuming passions, tracing the development of...
Milosevic
The Saddam Hussein Reader
Genius
This week's competition, in which you have to identify a book from its opening sentence, is froma novel that starts in confusion: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its...
Asians in Britain
War Diaries 1939-1945 - Churchill's Cold War - Churchill
The Veil of Order
The Philip Larkin I Knew
Alan Ryan spent several years teaching at Princeton and has a research appointment at Stanford, but he betrays a lack of understanding of US higher education when he writes: "The cheapness of tuition...