An odd list for an odd year. I have probably spent more time frantically reading about Brexit than anything else, but I assure you there is no Brexit here because we all deserve happiness. Next year I may struggle to maintain myself. (In case you’re wondering, Bloomberg has the best commentary.)
Strangely I read almost nothing about sex that was worth including in this list. The recent Quartz piece only made the cut because, as Jason Wilson put it, it’s a “sly, deadpan masterpiece”. Also, its title is the opposite of its actual message suggesting that the editor didn’t really read it.
Meanwhile, the over-representation of articles on academia reflects both the quality of commentaries in 2018, as well as my increasing anxiety about what the research sector is really all about and whether I’m in danger of going down with the ship.
Categories are somewhat arbitrary, and many of the pieces could be under several headings at once. Debbie Cameron’s ‘Shibboleths’, for example, seems to belong almost everywhere.
Enjoy! And if you come across any great or thought-provoking writing in 2019, please send it my way.
Academia
- The Sublimated Grief of the Left Behind – Erin Bartram
- The university: a guide for depressives
- The neurotic academic: how anxiety fuels casualised academic work
- I struggle to hire academics, because candidates are too good | Anonymous academic
- Don Kalb: HAU not: For David Graeber and the anthropological precariate
- The Humanities Are in Crisis
- I Worked With Avital Ronell. I Believe Her Accuser.
- Orthodoxxed!
- Alt-Ac Isn’t Always the Answer
- Cultures of academic (dis)agreement
- If you love research, academia may not be for you
- The New Science Wars
- Who values the humanities?
America
Anthropology/Ethnography
Ethics & the examined life
Feminism
Funny
- I Am Eric Trump. My Family Won’t Let Me Talk Because I Am an Anarcho-Feminist Committed to Kurdish Liberation
- Michelangelo’s Hustle Journal, ca. 1499
- List: A Checklist for Writing Your First Think Piece
- How “They’re Good Dogs, Brent” Became the Nicest Meme On the Internet
- We Are 65 Witches Who Have Known Dorothy For Years and Were Never Killed By Her House
- List: Famous Authors’ ASMR Props
History
- The Enlightenment of Steven Pinker
- How to change the course of human history | Eurozine
- Gangster’s paradise: how organised crime took over Russia
- Early Modern Memes: The Reuse and Recycling of Woodcuts in 17th-Century English Popular Print – The Public Domain Review
- The roots of writing lie in hopes and dreams, not in accounting – Michael Erard | Aeon Essays
- How the Enlightenment Created Modern Race Thinking and Why We Should Confront It
- What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire?
Journalism
Kids & parents
Language
Money
Politics
Science
Sex
Technology
Writing & writers
[How I made this (a note to self). Favourite articles were archived using instapaper and then downloaded as html via the settings page]
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