Category Archives: Uncategorized
New Book in our series with Ohio State UP
I had one of those funny moments today. I received several new books in the mail, and I looked at one with the title Ancient Sex and thought—wow, who sent me this? Then I realized, “Oh, yeah, that’s the next in our series … Continue reading
Confessions of a Spelling Bee Pronouncer, Part II
I understand the devotion to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, I really do. It is our American dictionary, after all, started by Noah Webster in 1806, the founding father who sought to save our language from the “clamor of pedantry” that surrounded the British … Continue reading
Confessions of a Spelling Bee Pronouncer, Part I
If you ask people who run spelling bees what the toughest job is, most will probably say the pronouncer. That might seem counterintuitive. After all, those kids have to get up there—on television in our case—and think on their feet with … Continue reading
Engines Hits 3000!
On Monday we had the pleasure of celebrating the 3000th episode of Engines of Our Ingenuity with a little party in a KUHF studio. Fellow contributors like Andy Boyd, Michael Barratt, Haleh Ardebili, and Cathy Patterson joined KUHF personnel, including our current producer … Continue reading
After Centuries, the Homeric Question is solved!
For those of you who have been struggling with the question of the textualization of the Iliad and Odyssey, you can now relax. A first edition of Homer has been discovered, which will of course settle all questions about the text, as … Continue reading
Another review in LARB
Years ago, I rather liked the essay Adam Phillips wrote on Freud and biography in Darwin’s Worms, which suggested psychoanalysis fundamentally pulls the rug out from the very idea of biography. Imagine my surprise to see Phillips later wrote a short biography … Continue reading
Tamler Sommers—Master Podcaster!
Hey, did you know that Honors College philosophy prof Tamler Sommers has a wonderfully irreverent podcast? Not only is it stimulating and highly entertaining—it’s also getting a LOT of notice! As in nearly half a million downloads in little over … Continue reading
Cremins on Manor of Speaking!
As hinted earlier, our colleague Robert Cremins has indeed reappeared as a talking head to comment on the social and historical background of Downton Abbey (Season 5, episode 1) on KUHT’s Award Winning Manor of Speaking with Ernie Manouse. http://manorofspeaking.org/this-weeks-episode/ He looks quite … Continue reading
The Overtime Theater in San Antonio
If you’re heading over to San Antonio, you might want to check out the Overtime Theater’s productions—voted 5 years running the “best theater company in San Antonio.” I was there a while back to see The Screen Dreams of Buster Keaton … Continue reading
Check out Robert Cremins!
My colleague Robert has given a very nice overview of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for PBS. It’s quite a well produced short segment—check it out! When he’s not commenting on TV, he’s busy writing for the LA Review of Books. … Continue reading
Richard H Armstrong 