Contemporary American Fiction: Graduate Seminar (Syllabus)
“Books have to be read (worse luck, for it takes a long time); it is the only way of discovering what they contain.” E.M. Forster This seminar examines works of […]
A Former Student’s Response to the AASP Statement
I have received an out-pouring of responses from students, alumni, and faculty in the short time since the BC Asian American Studies Program released its statement on the St. Mary’s protest. I […]
BC Asian American Studies Program Statement on the St. Mary’s Protest
We write on behalf of the Asian American Studies Program at Boston College, which supports research and coursework on the experiences of Asians in the United States. Recent protests in […]
Star Wars, Episode Whatever (Updated)
The main cast of the new Start Wars trilogy has just been announced, and honestly the actors they’ve chosen seem very talented. But, as at least one observer has already […]
Some Thoughts on Academic Writing
What if academic prose could aspire to be an art form in its own right, equal to any other mode of creative expression? What would be lost and what would […]
Eleven Theses on the Rising Cost of Higher Education
This post was inspired by this Chronicle article on a recent study regarding the drivers behind the rising cost of higher education, and is clearly a snapshot of where my thinking happens […]
Rent-Seeking and the Rhetoric of the 1%
(This is a reprint of a post I wrote last year for a class blog.) In The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future, Joseph Stiglitz offers an […]
The Global South Goes to the Vatican
I just finished reading Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation, which has been getting a lot of attention in the news, and my head is swimming. It’s an extraordinary text, and one […]
American Literature and the New Materialism (syllabus draft – UPDATED)
DESCRIPTION It is only a slight exaggeration to say that no intellectual development in the humanities in the past half century has been the cause of as much controversy as […]
Mall Melancholia
I was having a pretty good time at the mall today. It’s been a long week, and I spent the morning and early afternoon working pretty hard. My wife and […]
Min Hyoung Song 