Nothing particularly interesting

So things are going well at Newham University Centre.  We have a whole new building dedicated to our students, a new suite of laboratories and a shiny badge of accreditation from the British Psychological Society with which we can attract more students to add to our 900 or so current crop – not to mention a decent vote of confidence from HEFCE.  At the same time, we now have staff rooms filled with new, young and vigorous academics, some with faces still glowing from the completion of their Phds and others with publications lists that run into page numbers greater than their birthdays.   Not bad after just three years. It is good times.  There is a sense of something exciting going on - although still in its early stages.  There is even a new Research Manager, which means that I am finally facing the inevitability of having to address my own research shortcomings. The truth is I have no research record.   No Phd.   No publications.  ...

I am coming a bit late to this party, as it has been some days now since Education Secretary Michael Gove announced his intention to replace the GCSE with an English Baccalaureate Certificate.   Many comments have been made about this change by people with far more knowledge and expertise than me.   Perhaps the most entertaining, passionate and yet at the same time clear-sighted comments have come from the current Children’s Poet Laureate Michael Rosen, who has been blogging at length about what he calls the ‘ GCSE Fraud’ , his firm believe that the new ‘O-level’ style qualification will not raise standards , and the fact that Gove is using highly questionable data to support his claims of a need for change. I am not a specialist of further or compulsory education (i.e. GCSEs and A-Levels).   My teaching career has been an exclusively higher education one (i.e. BA degrees).   Teachers in compulsory education are required to undergo years of sp...

I have been thinking about starting a club for disaffected specialists in the eighteenth century, who never get to teach anything to do with the eighteenth century any more. Thought of calling it the Society of Historical Redundancy - which seems suitably bitter. This society will meet in the upstairs room of Starbucks coffee shop in Stratford, where coffee and chocolate will be quaffed in a boisterous manner.  All members will be required to rest one leg on a table or chair to indicate an attitude of relaxed and daring bravado or (if we are lucky) outright debauchery. The dress code will be wigs (worn at a jaunty angle), tights, snuff-boxes (the snuff is optional), satirical sneers and oversize hats which can be thrown into the air at random moments and for no discernable reason. The debates will range from topics such as the meaning of life, science, poverty and education, but will mostly involve bitching about the seventeenth century (' what a waste of a hundred years...

Fresh into the coffee shop this morning, I had already experienced a moment of self-doubt when I found myself actually skipping through Stratford shopping centre to the tune of '500 miles' by the Proclaimers (it was the 'da-da-da-da' bit that got me).  As disconcerting as this was, it was of some relief to see the coffee shop approaching fast like a caffine-carrying St. Bernard. After a sit down I opened my laptop and one of the first things I saw was a tweet from Martin Hughes (aka @universityboy ) with two articles about how successful people start their days.  This made me laugh.  Quite a lot actually - although can't really say why.  Perhaps it was the realisation of how far short of the models of 'success' implied by these articles?  Anyway, as much gallows humour as I drew from them, there are some things which are worth looking at. One piece of advice was 'don't check your email in the first hour' - which made me feel rather please...

The Democratic Convention is underway, which means that the election campaigning is now going to switch into overdrive, and for outside observers like myself the real fun is going to start.  One thing has become quickly clear.   The ‘American Dream’ is again at the heart of both the promises and the warnings both parties are hinging their campaigns on.   Last week I was caught out expressing my default exasperation at this dream.   'What' I was challenged 'did I have against dreams?' A great question.  After a fair number of years teaching predominantly left-wing American drama a fundamental opposition to the American Dream becomes almost a given.   However, when even some of the most forceful proponents of liberal ideologies can candidly confess a sea-change in some of their most deep-felt political views it is worth reminding ourselves that any views we hold need constant appraisal and re-valuation. David Mamet's ripping asunder of corpora...

I presume that most of us believe ourselves to be an expert in something.  From particle physics to computer games, from parenting to bomb disposal, most of us spend a great part of our lives focusing on something - and it is impossible to do that without knowing quite a lot about it. As an academic, my own areas of expertise are pretty precise.  I don't think it would be particularly arrogant to suggest that if I were to throw a stone from the coffee shop in which I am sitting, it would be unlikely to hit many people who know more about language philosophy in the mid-eighteenth-century English novel.  Having said that, if I were to throw a stone from here I would probably hit half-a-dozen people who know more about gardening, DIY, mathematics, etc. etc.. Being in Stratford, I am currently fascinated by the people I see with Olympic security badges.  What do they do?  Have I just said 'good morning' to an Olympian?  To a woman who was an architect of th...

Formalism and Structuralism on Prezi