Rough Theory

Theory In The Rough

Monthly Archives: April 2006

Placebo Defect

4 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on April 28, 2006

I’ve been invited to design a very rough draft for a course on Science and Public Policy over the next couple of weeks. It would be an elective course and, since the course won’t have been offered previously at this university, it is uncertain which students would attend – it might attract students from the [...]

Courses, Links, Math and Science, Miscellaneous, Teaching

Behave, Nietzsche!

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 27, 2006

My two-year-old son is fascinated with dogs, and tends to plunge toward them with reckless abandon. I try to scout the reaction of the owner and the dog, and intervene where necessary to prevent unpleasant experiences – whether for my son, or the dog… Yesterday, we went for a long walk, and had had several [...]

Family, Miscellaneous

Jane Jacobs (4 May 1916 – 25 April 2006)

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 26, 2006

I just saw in the The New York Times that Jane Jacobs has passed away. I’m unfortunately in the middle of writing a conference piece, and can’t write an adequate retrospective reflection on her work now. The New York Times article is available here (free registration required). Update: other retrospectives on Jacobs (including an excellent [...]

City Planning, Miscellaneous

Bloggership Symposium

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 25, 2006

Orin Kerr, from the group legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy, has drawn attention to a symposium on the relationship of blogging to legal scholarship, at the Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. It may just be selection bias, since I regularly read a number of legal blogs, but it seems to me [...]

Blogging, Professional Life, Teaching

Blog Software Update

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 21, 2006

Just a quick note that, at some point over the weekend, I’ll be changing over to the latest version of WordPress. In theory, the testing of the new version will occur in the background, and there should be only a brief disruption to the blog at the moment the new version goes live. In practice, [...]

Admin

Waiting for Adorno

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 20, 2006

I’m having a perversely difficult time getting a copy of Theodor Adorno’s “Sociology and Psychology” article, published in the New Left Review in two parts, in Nov-Dec, 1967, and Jan-Feb 1968. My library doesn’t happen to carry the journal from this period, but has a normally very efficient service for procuring articles from other university [...]

Critical Theory, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Psychology

Finding Your Way Here

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 18, 2006

I’m always interested in the search terms that lead visitors to this site. Most people reach the site from other sites that link here, or following fairly conventional searches to titles of books, authors or issues I’ve discussed. I can also always count on a steady stream of folks misdirected here when trying to find [...]

Blogging, Miscellaneous

Michael Wesch at Savage Minds

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 12, 2006

I just wanted to draw attention to the fantastic material being posted at Savage Minds by guest blogger Michael Wesch. Michael has written several posts about a fantastic, semester-long World Simulation project that he uses to lead students to discover interesting and relevant questions about the interactions of material environment, culture, and historical contingencies in [...]

Links, Teaching

Would You Like an Exam with That?

10 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on April 7, 2006

The strong divide between “research” and “coursework” postgraduate programs here, means that Australian universities don’t tend to put social science postgraduate students through any additional coursework or comprehensive exams, beyond what they completed for their undergraduate degrees. US postgraduates, by contrast, usually have to pass specific postgraduate coursework as well as a comprehensive exam, in [...]

Critical Theory, Links, Teaching

Loving Big Brother

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on April 3, 2006

It’s always strange when you find a passage that could easily find a home in a critical text – except that it was actually written by someone who approves of what they’re describing. From the readings discussed in the History and Theory of Planning course today, comes this modernist fever-dream. I could as easily see [...]

City Planning, Critical Theory, Philosophy of History

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