Category: culture
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On Evil, Or Bullies Do Not Know What They Are.
A couple weeks ago, I used a somewhat risky pedagogical tool to get my students thinking about political rhetoric and assignations of “good” and “evil” identities. They were reading an essay by Edward Said that criticized another essay written in the wake of September 11 that divided the world into two spheres: “The West” and…
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Artistic Temperance
If you’ve stopped by this blog frequently enough, or perhaps even just once, you’ll know that I have what I consider to be a healthy and lively obsession with Project Runway. This is somewhat odd because while I am a homosexual and therefore innately/magically sartorially gifted, I am also colorblind, pattern-averse, difficult to fit off…
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The real James Ellroy
James Ellroy appeared at The Writer’s Center on Saturday night, in conjunction with George Mason University’s Fall for the Book Festival. It was probably one of the most fun literary events I’ve been to in a long time. Ellroy is certainly bigger than life, a factor made even more prominent by the fact that he…
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Tagline Brainstorm
Twitter: Because everything you think is genius. Twitter: Chat for the schizophrenic. RT @myself Chat for the schizophrenic! Twitter: Impulse control? So 20th Century. Twitter: Need more quilt inside your sexy warm typewriter? Twitter: Sucking your life away one Tweet at a time. Twitter: If the President does it, it isn’t a crime! Twitter: Like…
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America and the Culture of Surveillance
After writing my post yesterday, I got to thinking about how unremarkable the idea at the heart of Gossip Girl really is these days. Why we aren’t shocked or surprised by the concept, why we say it couldn’t happen (or even why it shouldn’t happen), or more importantly, why we don’t look away. We live…
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Where am I going and where have I been?
I fell into a Gossip Girl whole and spent my entire Saturday eating waffles and watching all the season 2 episodes so far. It made me feel like this: Then, I spent subsequent days catching up on all the episodes of Privileged and 90210 too. They’re not as good as GG–in fact, 90210 is as…
Charles Jensen | Writer 