A friend who teaches at a Japanese university tells me of a phenomenon in the classroom that he calls the “shut-out syndrome.” It refers, he says, to the ability of students to mentally block everything they hear inside the classroom. They are physically present, their eyes are on their professors, they appear to listen, yet … Read more
The trouble with Father’s Day is not only that it is steeped in commercialism, but that it also trivializes the complex emotions that characterize our relationship with our fathers. Setting aside a special day to remember fathers has become an invitation to replace unique feelings with stereotype sentiments, to articulate tenderness by the glibness of … Read more
The annual celebration of a country’s Independence Day is always an occasion for kitsch. On such a day, the state invites its citizens to pause from their ordinary preoccupations in order to imagine themselves as the collective inheritors of a great tradition of struggle and heroism. In the past, the high moments of that tradition … Read more
A friend visited me at home the other night. Unable to state the real purpose of the visit over the family dinner table, this friend sent me a desperate e-mail that same evening, followed by a fax version of the same message. The contents of the letter were private, and I understood why they could … Read more