Caleb Smith

PhilosophyPodcasts.Org: Caleb Smith. Distraction and discipline. Caleb Smith Thoreau's axe: Distraction and discipline in American culture   Today, we’re driven to distraction, our attention overwhelmed by the many demands upon it—most of which emanate from ou...

A good, searching conversation with the hospitable August Baker of Philosophy Podcasts

philosophypodcasts.org/thoreau2

With the rise of AI, I've begun to wonder if future graders of expository essays will even be able to grasp the sheer brilliance of Mandy Berry's famous Student Essay Unplugged? We many never see this kind of essay again, folks.

Temporary cure for the oozing polycrisis blues: spend a couple hours chatting with @annakornbluh.bsky.social & @c-also.bsky.social about Fred Jameson.

Don’t forget to press record.

Really good to think and talk with y’all!

May 5th is Marx's birthday The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways – the point however is to change it. Karl Marx's contributions to the study of economics, politics, and philosophy are beyond measure. ...

Today is Karl Marx's birthday.

All books by and on Marx are on sale for up to 50% off as part of our Red May Sale.

Yale faculty urge administrators to defend academic freedom Around 900 faculty signed a letter to President Maurie McInnis and Provost Scott Strobel calling for “courageous leadership” in the face of attacks on higher education.

yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/04...

I am so honored and FIRED UP to introduce the legendary Angela Davis on Yale’s campus tomorrow, for a two-day lecture series on Abolition. Let’s go!

Adam Shatz | Submission There’s nothing surprising about Trump’s attack on the universities, or on the liberal law firms that he also...

A clarifying account of what is happening at Columbia and beyond.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ma...

What if the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction? From the pianoforte to the smartphone, each wave of tech has sparked fears of brain rot. But the problem isn’t our ability to focus—it’s what we’re focussing on.

Here’s a smart essay about media, distraction, and who decides what’s worth paying attention to:

What if the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction? www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Mutual Aid LA Network Mutual Aid LA Network is a connector and information hub for mutual aid efforts across Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, I love you! Some ways to help, via Mutual Aid LA:

mutualaidla.org

174: Beyond Ethical Reading: How Fiction Thinks about Motive, Will, and Desire. With Emily Ogden and Jennifer Fleissner. Thursday, 7pm, Camp.

13: Genres of Criticism, Genres in Criticism. With Stephen Best, Jane Hu, Lauren Michelle Jackson, Jeremy Rosen, and Ross Wilson. Thursday, noon, Canal.

Bound for New Orleans and the MLA. Catch me at the bar, or at one of these two killer sessions:

How Joe Brainard spent Christmas in 1961: played in the snow all morning, completely broke his glasses, worked on a self-portrait collage, went to a Chinese restaurant & had chow mein & 6 whiskey sours & then stayed up all night & wrote a 34-page story

Goodbye to the Greatest Marxist Critic of Our Time On Fredric Jameson’s last book.

"This relentless turning away from common sense, this flight from an ideologically ingrained worldview, is what Jameson means when he talks about theory as a liberation."

@c-also.bsky.social on Jameson's "The Years of Theory"

www.chronicle.com/article/good...

Our Most Loved Pieces of 2024 - Boston Review The essays, reviews, forums, and interviews that readers turned to the most.

As the year comes to a close, we've gathered the 24 essays, reviews, forums, and interviews that readers turned to the most.

Moribunderkind

My book, John Cale’s Paris 1919, for the 33 1/3 series. Pub date: Feb 6.

Well lookie there.

Here’s the AAUP statement on the insane full metal jacket crackdown on peaceful protestors asking for investment transparency and divestment from genocide in Gaza yesterday. I am one of the faculty members who was labeled persona non grata (PNG), banned from university buildings.

Maybe start with ‘King of the World’

It’s good! Also for fans of First Aid Kit?

BREAKING: The AAUP condemns today’s faculty arrests at NYU.

“This crackdown on NYU faculty is part of a distressing pattern of repression of pro-Palestinian speech on college campuses nationwide.” — AAUP President Todd Wolfson.

⬇️
www.aaup.org/news/aaup-co...

Michael Tondre’s beautifully written and very very smart book OIL

I own it now and so should you 🤩🔥🌿

@mltondre.bsky.social

dear god

Goodbye to the Greatest Marxist Critic of Our Time On Fredric Jameson’s last book.

‘Is there a death of theory, along with the death of the author, the end of art, & all the rest?’ Fredric Jameson wonders. I wrote about his fantastic master class, The Years of Theory, for The Chronicle Review.

www.chronicle.com/article/good...

The Art of Criticism No. 5 Teaching at Duke, 1988. Courtesy of Duke University. The critic Fredric Jameson died at the age of ninety on September 22, 2024, a little more than a year after the first of the three conversations th...

Don’t know when this will be unpaywalled but you should subscribe if you can—and anyway here is a brand-new interview I did for @parisreview with Fredric Jameson, based on several late 2023 Skype sessions www.theparisreview.org/interviews/8...

Yes! This is what it’s good for.

Thanks to the venerable Center for American Literary Studies for inviting me to talk about Thoreau’s Axe. We got into the method wars, the crisis of higher education, & how Arkansas skateboarders & underground musicians taught me to think about discipline.

cals.la.psu.edu/beyond-the-b...