What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here's a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you'd like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike. 1. The Collapse of Higher Education: Seth Godin on the coming melt-down in higher education: For 400 years, higher education in the US has been on a roll. From Harvard asking Galileo to be a guest professor in the 1600s to millions tuning in to … [Read more...] about Week in Review: Commonplace Edition
literature
What is your relationship to reading and writing?
Great question. Do you resonate with the response Rachel Toor received from a graduate class in physical education? When we were wrapping up, I asked them a question: "What is your relationship to reading and writing?" At that moment, they morphed from T-shirt-clad physical specimens and became generic graduate students, indistinguishable from all-in-black, cigarette-smoking studiers of literary theory and bearded-and-geeky future scientists. It's all we do, they wailed, and it's hard. ... The journal articles he … [Read more...] about What is your relationship to reading and writing?
Recognizing the Messiah
As I mentioned in Week in Review: Behold the Man Edition, I have been unable to put down Brian Godawa's Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story & Imagination (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009).* Below is a quote relevant to Holy Week.** One of the reasons why the Jews of the first century did not recognize the visitation of the Messiah was because even they took the Bible too literally. Indeed, they were expecting a military or political king who would crush Rome (Dan 2:44-45), restore the nation … [Read more...] about Recognizing the Messiah
Week in Review: Can You Hear Aslan Roar?
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here's a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you'd like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike. 1. Call for writers who can explore whole people immersed in the multifaceted nature of politics: Ready to answer the call or suggest a book/film which meets the challenge given by Ross Douthat in Hollywood's Political Fictions (NY Times Op-Ed, … [Read more...] about Week in Review: Can You Hear Aslan Roar?
A Land Full of Mystery, Danger, and Wonder
How well does film convey material from classic literature? Can film be used to introduce a book and draw people into reading or does it stall the imagination, even inoculate against digging into the original text? Any classroom or personal experience(s) to share? What brings the question to mind? The recent release of the trailer for Tim Burton giving a stab at Alice in Wonderland (2010) with Johnny Depp (Mad Hatter), Anne Hathaway (White Queen), Helena Bonham Carter (Red Queen) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice). With my … [Read more...] about A Land Full of Mystery, Danger, and Wonder