Tag: Education

This fired chemistry professor’s example shows what’s wrong with academia

Jill Filipovic The dismissal of a renowned chemistry professor from NYU after a spate of student complaints about his teaching has reinvigorated a series of long-standing questions about the modern academy: Are academic standards dropping? Are professors and administrators too beholden to students’ fragile emotions – and their parents’ tuition dollars? And what’s wrong with… Read More This fired chemistry professor’s example shows what’s wrong with academia

Dilip

Are professors not expected to be original thinkers? How the JNU VC has undermined her own role

Apoorvanand One can only sympathise with the vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University when she denies the originality of her ideas to defend herself. When attacked for thoughts expressed during a lecture on BR Ambedkar and gender on August 22, she said in exasperation, “I am only a professor, not an original thinker.” Which meant… Read More Are professors not expected to be original thinkers? How the JNU VC has undermined her own role

Dilip

Basudev Chatterji

Nayanjot Lahiri I first met Basudev (lovingly called ‘Robi’) Chatterji in 1978 when I was an undergraduate student and he a lecturer at St. Stephen’s college. Over the years, he appeared in various avataras in my life –  as a mentor, as a friend, later as a colleague. Apart from university corridors,  I met him… Read More Basudev Chatterji

Dilip

Simon Leys: The View from the Bridge. His lectures on Learning, Reading, Writing and Going Abroad and Staying Home (1996)

First posted August 4, 2018 In 1996, Professor Pierre Ryckmans (Simon Leys) presented the ABC Boyer Lectures. Subsequently published under the title The View from the Bridge the lectures were serialised in four parts in China Heritage Quarterly with the permission of the author. The first lecture was called Learning (some introductory paragraphs are given below; but the link will… Read More Simon Leys: The View from the Bridge. His lectures on Learning, Reading, Writing and Going Abroad and Staying Home (1996)

Dilip

Venue for a Speech on Tamas: A Chronicle of an Event That Should Never Have Happened

First posted December 5, 2011 By Dilip Simeon; published in Bruised Memories: Communal Violence and the Writer, by Tarun Saint (ed), Seagull Books, Calcutta, 2002 Early in the year of grace 1988 certain (dis)reputable members of the academic community in the University of Delhi organized a public address on an unspeakable subject by a reluctant speaker in an… Read More Venue for a Speech on Tamas: A Chronicle of an Event That Should Never Have Happened

Dilip

Chandan Gowda: Keep party politics out of textbooks!

In use since 2017, the existing set of school textbooks in Karnataka were certainly in need of revision: many of the chapters in sociology were outdated, the discussions in economics, political science, history and geography drab and listless, and typographical and grammatical errors were found in the hundreds in the social science books.  But the… Read More Chandan Gowda: Keep party politics out of textbooks!

Dilip