Fencing Bear at Prayer

This is the last post I wanted to write, but it has become clear that if I do not write it, I will never write anything else. So here goes. This time last year I was preparing my file to submit to my department in expectation of being promoted to full professor. I probably don’t need to say any more, you can all check my title on the department web page now—go ahead , I’ll wait—although as one benefit, as part of the review process I did have to write statements about my research and teaching which I have posted on my academic home page as introductions to my method and goals. I got the news—I kid you not—on Friday the 13th. In April. Seven months ago. Since when, I have been living a lie. Or a half truth. Or...oh, fuck it, it sucks. Because it is nonsense, of course. I deserve to be promoted to full professor. I have published a second major monograph  with a prestigious academic publisher (our standard in the department, barring an outside offer from another u...

A medieval device for training the soul in prayer. London, British Library, Arundel 83, fol. 129v This wheel contains seven rings, one depending on the other. Through the first the second is gained; through the second the third, and so with the others by reading between each pair of radii.  The first ring of this wheel contains the seven petitions of the Lord’s prayer. The second ring contains the seven sacraments of the Church. The third ring contains the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. The fourth ring contains the seven spiritual weapons of the virtues. The fifth ring contains the seven corporeal and spiritual works of mercy. The sixth ring contains the seven principal virtues. The seventh ring contains the seven criminal vices. Begin to read at the P and complete the readings that are contained between each two radii. 1. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Here we pray to become sons of God the Father. Through this is given ba...

What do you do if you are a student or professor at one of the nation’s top universities  faced with the prospect of a speaker coming to your campus to talk about the importance of costumes and why “cultural appropriation” is simply the way art works , and—assuming that you even know what he is going to be talking about—you panic because you have no way of countering his arguments with fact, logic, reason, or even the semblance of academic rigor? Easy, if you are at NYU. You call him names—“ ‘alt-right’ leader ,” “white nationalist,” “white supremacist”— and you virtue signal about how hard it is to write about him, pointing to his “racism” and “anti-Semitism,” in proof of which you cite his marriage to a black man (Milo is white) and the fact that he has mentioned that his grandmother was Jewish. You insinuate that he is friends with a man known to hate him . You suggest on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that his public and private comments have put people in dan...

To : Yvonne Latty,  Clinical Professor of Journalism Meredith Broussard , Assistant Professor of Journalism Nanci Healy , Assistant Director of the Center for Student Life Re : The recent coverage in the Washington Square News  of Professor Michael Rectenwald’s invitation for Mr. Milo Yiannopoulos to speak to his class on Halloween Dear Colleagues, I read with interest the statement published today by the WSN Editorial Board on their coverage of Milo Yiannopoulos . I understand from the WSN statement of ethics that the students take sole responsibility for the editing of their work, but I am concerned that their statement contains a number of libels against Mr. Yiannopoulos presented as facts in support of their coverage. The student editors have also seen fit to run an opinion piece by Ms. Abby Hofstetter which contains an even larger number of libels. As someone who is well-acquainted with Mr. Yiannopoulos’s public statements, I write to draw your attention to...