Author Archives: Robert Basil

I wish I had written this.

Back in the day a journalist for the Norfolk Pilot newspaper got his copy back from his editor with this note: “Sorry it’s so short but a certain amount of muck, spleen, libel, hogwash, garbage, neologism, prurience, presumption, assumption, half-assumption, … Continue reading

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design + ways

My Kwantlen colleague Arley Cruther‘s essay “An Incomplete History of My Teaching Body” is breathtaking, beautiful and profound. Just published in a collection called “Voices of Practice: Narrative Scholarship from the Margin,” Arley’s piece starts this way: My summer pandemic … Continue reading

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It will be so good to get back in the classroom.

I will not be able to hide my tears.

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When in doubt …

… draw a distinction, says Jay Rosen.

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J. Hillis Miller

Professor Miller was a genial man whose ardent advocacy of the “deconstruction” movement in literary and cultural criticism was notable for his uncommonly graceful prose style. His early book “Poets of Reality” was a revelation to me my first year … Continue reading

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You got to dance with who brung you

A year or two ago a colleague who teaches business classes at my university suggested allowing students – whose term projects focused on opportunities in nations where English was not the predominant tongue – prepare their final reports/portfolios/presentations in Cantonese, … Continue reading

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The mess of thinking

Inaccurate interpretations of a particular data-point can nonetheless provide metaphors that describe a lot.

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Picturing the news

Peter Maass of The Intercept asks a really good question: “Why have Americans seen relatively little imagery of people suffering from Covid-19? While there is a long-running debate over the influence of disturbing images of death and dying — whether … Continue reading

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Being on paper

One of my favourite publishing ventures is the “Certain Days: The Freedom for Political Prisoners” calendars, “a joint fundraising and educational project between outside organizers in Montreal, Hamilton, New York and Baltimore, with two political prisoners being held in maximum-security … Continue reading

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Detail

I seem to have come to the point where I no longer recall the exact word but I do recall exactly why only that exact word will do.

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