Linda McMahon’s nomination to head the Department of Education was a characteristic move from Donald Trump, host of The Apprentice, who ended every episode with the words “You’re fired!”. McMahon, who co-founded the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) is no stranger …
How Trump can make education great again
Linda McMahon’s nomination to head the Department of Education was a characteristic move from Donald Trump, host of The Apprentice, who ended every episode with the words “You’re fired!”. McMahon, who co-founded the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) is no stranger …
The British scientists working for China
When Keir Starmer met his Chinese counterpart earlier this month, he gripped Xi Jinping’s hand and proclaimed the importance of a “strong” bilateral relationship. The meeting marked a warming of relations between the two nations, which have been decidedly frosty …
In defence of our new student radicals
Back in the Sixties, it was easy enough for conservatives to take pot shots at radical students. Not only were they out to subvert the state, but their lifestyle seemed calculated to transgress all standards of decency. They were long-haired …
How universities killed the academic
Po-faced poIs it possible to write a satirical campus novel anymore? Satire requires exaggeration and the pointed introduction of absurdity, but it is hard to see how modern university life could be further embellished in these respects. As usual, there …
How universities killed the academic
Po-faced poIs it possible to write a satirical campus novel anymore? Satire requires exaggeration and the pointed introduction of absurdity, but it is hard to see how modern university life could be further embellished in these respects. As usual, there …
Jews are not safe on Britain’s campuses
In my first year at university, in 2005, I vividly recall coming across a Guardian article by Luciana Berger headlined “Why I had to resign”. This was 14 years before she quit the “institutionally antisemitic” Labour Party; back then, she …
It’s time to abolish the university
A judge in a libel case once warned the jury not to award “Mickey Mouse damages”, plunging them into confusion over whether he meant ridiculously large or ridiculously small. The Government, however, has no such doubts about what counts as …
America is fighting the wrong university wars
The University of Texas at Arlington consists primarily of large parking lots, brown patches of grass and rectangular buildings capable of holding thousands of students. When I was a tenure-track assistant history professor there, for four years in the mid-2010s, …
Power has poisoned academia
In the spring of 2017, the journal Hypatia published an article titled “In Defense of Transracialism”, in which the author, Rebecca Tuvel, argued that “since we should accept transgender individuals’ decisions to change sexes, we should also accept transracial individuals’ …
Japan’s cynical war on woke
When I first came to Japan, about 23 years ago, I watched an episode of a highly popular TV drama, set in a kindergarten, which featured a once-happy toddler who had suddenly become withdrawn. The staff couldn’t understand what was …
The rise of Archaeologists Anonymous
In a quiet group chat in an obscure part of the internet, a small number of anonymous accounts are swapping references from academic publications and feverishly poring over complex graphs of DNA analysis. These are not your average trolls, but …
Effective altruism is the new woke
Around 2014, I started to notice that something was up in academic philosophy. Geeky researchers from fancy universities, having first made their names in abstract and technical domains such as metaphysics, were now recreating themselves as public-facing ethicists. Knowing some …
The problem with being uptight
It’s surely unfair to expect a brilliant scientist to also be a brilliant author. Some of the most valuable books I’ve encountered in my research have been the dreariest to read: repetitive, dense and joyless prose turning what could have …
Welcome to Hustler’s University
Imagine if you could get a university education for a fraction of the cost. Imagine if you could complete your studies in a few months rather than a few years. And imagine if, once you graduated, you could walk away …