Kritik Blog

Dear Colleagues,Once again it’s my great pleasure to welcome you back after summer and invite you to take part in the Unit’s programming this fall. The Unit has a busy autumn calendar that Associate Director Rob Rushing and I hope you will enjoy. Before I turn to those events, I want to offer an official welcome to Geography and...

[Here is the fourth in our multi-authored series of posts on Mad Men season 4, posted before the publication ofMAD WORLD: Sex, Politics, Style and the 1960s (Duke University Press.]"THE...

[The third in our multi-authored series of posts on Mad Men season 4, published before the publication ofMAD WORLD: Sex, Politics,...

[ The second in the Unit for Criticism's multi-authored series of posts on Season 4 of AMC's Mad Men was published in anticipation of MAD WORLD: Sex, Politics, Style, and the 1960s (Duke...

[This post was published in anticipation of completing a co-edited volume that includes collected papers from February's symposium,...

[Below Joseph Swenson, a grad student affiliate in Philosophy and recipient of a Unit for Criticism travel grant last fall, writes about his conference paper on Dewey's theory of aesthetic experience]Experience in Context: Revisiting DeweyWritten by Joseph Swenson (Philosophy)In October 2009 I presented a paper at the 67th...

[Each year the Unit for Criticism provides travel grants to select graduate student affiliates, inviting awardees to publish a post on Kritik about their paper. Below Amy Hasinoff,, a grad student affiliate in ICR, writes about a conference paper she delivered in fall.]No right to sext? Recent federal case avoids considering teens...

Left: Henrietta Lacks and her descendants[As part of our continuing coverage of last week's conference, BIOS: Life, Death, Politics, Kim O'Neill writes on Priscilla Wald's keynote address]Priscilla Wald on Cells, Genes, and StoriesWritten by Kim O’Neill (...

Left: Guards lead a detainee at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base[In our continuing coverage of the 4/30-5/1conference, BIOS: Life, Death, Politics, Michael Verderame writes on the afternoon keynote lecture by Paul Kahn (Yale Law)]Written by Michael...

[As part of our continuing coverage of the April 30-May 1 conference, BIOS: Life, Death, Politics, we are pleased to publish a version of Gilberto Rosas' contribution to the Closing Roundtable]"Illiberal Technologies and Liberal Societies"Written by...

Liberia c. 2002[The latest addition to the Unit for Criticism's "15 Ways to Take Your Furlough/Voluntary Paycut" series on higher education is by George Gollin, professor of physics, writing on the St. Regis University diploma mill and the social obligations of academics. ]"Slaying the Dragons of Opportunity"Written by George Gollin (...

Priscilla Wald (Duke) opens the conference with her keynote address, "Human Being After Genocide: Cells, Genes, and Stories." Photos fromBIOS: Life, Death, Politics,April 30 - May 1, 2010Timothy...

Tom Joslin and Mark Massi, Silverlake Life[On April 30 and May 1, 2010, the Unit for Criticism partnered with the Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies initiative for a a conference, BIOS: Life, Death, Politics. In the first of a series of guest...

[Below is the text from Siobhan Somerville's response to Martin Manalansan's April 19 lecture, "Travels of Disaffection: Labor, Affect and Migration"]“I also feel like I’m free”: Disaffection, Alienation, and Sexual PoliticsA Response to Martin Manalansan’s “Travels of Disaffection”Written by Siobhan Somerville (English and Gender...

[On April 19, 2010 the Unit for Criticism hosted "Travels of Disaffection: Labor, Affect, and Migration," a lecture by Martin Manalansan, associate professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies. Siobhan Somerville, associateprofessor of English and Gender & Women's Studies, responded.]Paper Dolls and The Global Heart...