Author Archives: Robert Basil

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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Road to improvement

Published in 1903. Found near Haro and Bidwell, Vancouver.

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Continued enchantment

I’ve lived in Vancouver for almost 25 years and I’ve never, not for one moment, gotten over my luck. Recently, finally, I found an easy way to convey my continued enchantment to people:

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Communicators identifying threats

These are the “ideal changes” we should be looking for in American political journalism going forward, according to No Contest favourite Jay Rosen: * Defense of democracy seen as basic to the job * Symmetrical accounts of asymmetrical realities seen … Continue reading

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Scholar Strike Canada

Here’s the schedule of events to be broadcast live and then video-archived. And here are some very illuminating resources. My university’s president and my dean both support the scholar strike, as do my teaching colleagues, of course. Scholar Strike originated … Continue reading

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