Category Archives: English

Why Do Some People End Their Sentences In ‘Yeah’?

From Quora: “Most British people don’t say Yeah at the end of a sentence. It would be most prevalent in certain dialects in South Eastern England. It is used as a affirmation of the sentence it ends, or the series … Continue reading

Posted in English | Comments Off on Why Do Some People End Their Sentences In ‘Yeah’?

Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative

From the LROB: * It isn’t just that everyone now has a story; it’s that everyone is a story. Who you are is the narrative you recount about yourself. Whether the life history of someone forced into sex work reflects … Continue reading

Posted in English | Comments Off on Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative

Departments on the Defensive

From the New York Review: * Academic criticism can thus be regarded as an innovation of the 1920s, like the lie detector, water skiing, the timed traffic light, and the bread slicer. * the pitched battles over curriculum and methodology … Continue reading

Posted in English | Comments Off on Departments on the Defensive

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne

Here are some highlights from this 2022 book by Katherine Rundell: * The power of John Donne’s words nearly killed a man. It was the late spring of 1623, on the morning of Ascension Day, and Donne had finally secured … Continue reading

Posted in English | Comments Off on Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne

Conflict in the Academy: A Study in the Sociology of Intellectuals (2015)

Review: “In late 1980, an apparently minor dispute at Cambridge University became headline news. The question was whether or not the young lecturer Colin MacCabe – whose work was heavily influenced by recent developments in structuralist and post-structuralist theory – … Continue reading

Posted in Cambridge, English | Comments Off on Conflict in the Academy: A Study in the Sociology of Intellectuals (2015)