Posts tagged as Harvard
Harvard Student Takes Off Harvard T-Shirt When Leaving Campus
"If I know I will be leaving campus during the day, I almost always put my Harvard t-shirt back in the drawer and pick something more unidentifiable. If it slips my mind and I find myself in Central Square with 'Harvard' emblazoned across my chest, I suddenly become self-conscious." READ MORE
School for Witch Burners
I have three or four things I want to put together. First is The Social Network which I resisted seeing for a very long time (“You’ll love it. It’s great!” It wasn’t.) And second is The Rite which I’ve wanted to see ever since those previews months back. I finally had my paws on The Rite thanks to Netflix but then I couldn’t find anyone to watch it with me at this artist colony I’ve been at all month and I’m leaving tomorrow. So alone and in the deep of the night I watched The Rite in bed. Third and fourth I think is the current economic crisis in America which has been up for me in a female-related way since mid-July with the non-appointment of Elizabeth Warren to the head of the CFPB (Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau). What an idea! Right? That consumers should be protected in America! It’s so amazing that this brilliant person, Elizabeth Warren, who actually knows more about bankruptcy than anyone else in the country and is not from the ruling class, decided to put her expertise to work, you know, fixing things, helping the system work—mainly by imagining how it could be (like why not create a mortgage contract that people can read!) and then knocking on doors until she got the go-ahead from the White House to form a government agency that actually oversees banks large and small and credit companies and loans to college students—an agency which will make sure that the people who do business with these companies, not other companies, but people—the CFPB is now almost ready to begin overseeing the contingency that these actual people won’t get screwed again... you know, like the song. Oh, I guess I was fooled again. Elizabeth Warren takes a leave from teaching at Harvard to create this agency so naturally she is not appointed to direct it. READ MORE
What's Invisible At Harvard: A Conversation
Last week, The Paris Review's blog ran "Harvard and Class," a piece by Misha Glouberman (co-authored by Sheila Heti) about the challenges of dealing with class after attending "an upper-middle-class Jewish day school" in Canada and then going to Harvard—which, hmmm! As two recent Harvard grads ourselves, we wanted to offer a slightly different perspective on class, race and the Ivy League, as well as what it’s like to be offered $40 by your peers to remain invisible, please. READ MORE
Yale Ditches Dept. Of Anti-Jew Studies, Loses Boat Race
The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism is donezo, according to Yale, with the rationale that Jews just weren't interesting enough, or something? Actually it was very vague! The head of the program basically said they weren't doing good enough work and not getting published enough. Now Jews are mad. READ MORE
Niall Ferguson: Hack
We're on record for being con on war-mongering pro-colonialist Harvard biz school prof Niall Ferguson, but here is a substantial accounting of Fergusonianism and his Civilization: The West and the Rest. (Warning: green type on black background!) It's pretty choice. READ MORE
Rich Man Buys Expensive House
Jack Meyer, who managed Harvard's endowment until 2005, at which point some people tried to run it into the ground, with a little help from pals from Goldman Sachs, while Meyer went off to run a hedge fund, just spent $15 million on a house in Dutchess County, so all's well that ends well.
Harvard Walkout Over Marty Peretz Money
Forty or so students walked out on their social studies class yesterday, as the fight about an endowment from New Republic owner/figurehead Marty Peretz heats up. The $650,000 undergraduate research fund comes from donations in the name of Peretz, who is, among many other things, a former Harvard professor. (There is already a Martin Peretz Chair in Yiddish Literature at Harvard, since the early 90s; that money comes from his married-into (and now separated) Singer fortune.) Peretz was recently disinvited from speaking at Harvard over his recent thoughts on Muslims. The students' crazy objections seem to mostly be about how Peretz not only hates Muslims but also most Latinos though mostly Mexicans and a fair share of the blacks as well. (But only what Peretz has historically classified as the lazy ones.) The Harvard Islamic Society is still waiting for its meeting with the school's president.
Harvard Prof Mounts a Defense of Teaching "The Wire"
"The Wire" is a fictional television show that many people really liked and that many people think is a very revealing take on The Way We Live in Urban Cities now. As you probably know, it is being taught at universities including Harvard, in a seminar on urban inequality. Now comes a defense of that choice: "'The Wire' is fiction, but it forces us to confront social realities more effectively than any other media production in the era of so-called reality TV," writes the director of the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program at Harvard Kennedy, an esteemed sociologist. How is that possibly true? It's fiction. It's made up. (Also has he not seen "Jersey Shore"? Half-kidding!) READ MORE
TED: Just Admit It
The September issue of Fast Company contains a breathless look at TED and the viral-video nature of clips featuring its flagship conference's 18-minute lectures — known as TED Talks — by Anya Kamenetz. I spent a good part of this afternoon trying to figure out why this piece, which calls the network of conferences and videos "the new Harvard" in its URL but curiously backs off that claim in its actual headline, got my outrage-o-meter popping. Let's find out! READ MORE
Giuliani's Daughter No Altar Boy
The Post is reporting that Caroline Giuliani, the former mayor's youngest child, was arrested today at the Sephora on 86th and Lexington-near the home of her mother Donna Hanover, Rudy's ex-wife- for allegedly shoplifting from the cosmetics store. The 20-year-old was caught in the act at 3:30 p.m., the Daily News alleges. This is the conversation I had with a Sephora employee shortly thereafter. READ MORE
