stalactites or stalagmites?

"The days of the examinations passed in a blur. We all recognised them as the climax of years of misery, not only because we recognised them as the threshold of whatever futures we desired for ourselves, but also because each of us hoped through them to state our worth and value. Everything conspired to seduce us into this absurd position. We were the heroes of the day, confronting the tests of life and intellect, grappling with an irrational enemy that sought at every turn to ambush and trick us. After each sitting, we set off from the examination hall in a body, like guerillas returned from battle, wandering the streets and parading ourselves as the smiling survivors of the examiners' wiles. We formed self-important discussion groups by the roadside: should the answer have been stalactites or stalagmites? Nobody laughed at us, although our teachers feigned amusement by our intensity. We all knew the prizes that had become available to those who had succeeded ahead of us."

~~ from Memory of Departure by Abdulrazak Gurnah

the universal appeal of fascism

"What [Professor] Licht initiates as glib anecdote moves to officious young Americans pretending to be serious critics. As a group, we want to speak about the cycles of history, when the next Hitler might appear, and how and whether fascist moments can be avoided in future history or contemporary moments. But isn’t it the rule and not the exception? We wander from cycles as Licht steers us toward the principle of backbiting within the Reich. A man could not be trusted who would not willingly lie and sleep his way to the top, or at least ahead of his best friends and neighbors. He suggests that even the Reich had its secrets. He asks if anyone would like to speak of the universal appeal of fascism, or if we should just break for McDonalds and washrooms."

the shocking news. . .

• Between 2016 and 2017, people with at least a bachelor's degree were the only group to have an increase in the poverty rate or the number of people in poverty. Among this group, the poverty rate increased 0.3 percentage points and the number in poverty increased by 363,000 individuals between 2016 and 2017. Even with this increase, among educational attainment groups, people with at least a bachelor’s degree had the lowest poverty rates in 2017.

diversity in the college classroom

EG: Both novels are set in Philadelphia, a diverse city, and your novels never shy away from how ethnic and racial tensions can manifest themselves in the classroom.  Should college instructors be better prepared for teaching in diverse classrooms?

AK: It’s a funny question because, yes, absolutely, and ideally, all college instructors should get paid diversity training, and yet, we aren’t even at the point where every college student in America knows who their teacher will be two weeks before classes start. Also, I should say that although Philadelphia is diverse, I taught at one school where it would not be uncommon to have an almost all white or only white and Asian (often South Asian) class. In the South I had many different sections of up to 34 students that would often include only one black student or two black students and one “HAPA” student or something like that. So some of the college classrooms I’ve been have been incredibly homogeneous—vast majority white to entirely white.

Read more from Part 1 and Part 2 of an extended interview on Auggie's Revenge and the Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day.

New Adjunct Novel!

I'm excited to announce that I signed a publishing contract for my second novel late last week. Beating Windward Press will publish Auggie's Revenge, a comic crime novel starring a trailer-park con artist, a supermarket seducer, and an adjunct instructor of philosophy searching for a life worth living.

sign on the line that is dotted, part 2

An Education in Class

Follow this linked sentence for a compelling look at the intersection of luck, college, financial aid, Brandeis, economic class, N.Y.U., dorm life, Portugal, one-way bus tickets, and cigarette supplies.

a little over half

A little over half over six years would not only get you into the Hall of Fame but would make you the greatest hitter of all time.

Of course, we're talking about college-graduation rates, not baseball or any other game.