How to Research Like a Dog

Written toward the end of Franz Kafka’s life, “Investigations of a Dog” is one of the lesser-known and most enigmatic works in the author’s oeuvre. Kafka didn’t give the story a title, writing it in the autumn of 1922 but leaving it unpublished and unfinished. It was published posthumously in 1931 in a collection edited by his friend and biographer Max Brod, who named it Forschungen eines Hundes — which could also be translated as “Researches of a Dog,” to give it a more academic ring. [...] “Investigations of a Dog” presents a brilliant and sometimes hilarious parody of the world of knowledge production, what the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan called “the university discourse.” Aaron Schuster, The MIT Press

confrontarsi con Kafka, sempre. Buon Natale e Hanukkah!

Untold Lessons

It is 1970 in the northern Italian city of Biella, and a teacher has gone missing. The disappearance of Silvia seems to be linked to the death of her pupil Giovanna, a girl who was beaten at home ... John Self, The Guardian

è stata una sorpresa trovare sul Guardian - tra i libri recentemente tradotti in inglese - il romanzo di Maddalena Vaglio Tanet, che in Italia si intitola Tornare nel bosco ed è edito da Marsilio. Non lo conosco, ma l'ho cercato in versione kindle. Mi incuriosisce, così come mi incuriosisce l'autrice. Tra l'altro si svolge sulle colline e nei boschi della mia infanzia.

Q&A with Dr. Michael Silverstein: How social media can impact child health

 

Q: Can you help put the social media phenomenon in context? How does it compare to previous phenomena that were assumed to have negative effects on children’s mental health, such as violent television programs or video games? 

Unlike, say, the video games of yesteryear, social media follows you from school to soccer practice to your friend's house to your house; from the kitchen to the bedroom to the bathroom. This phenomenon can exist and persist in most physical spaces, as well as in a person’s mental space. Let’s say a classmate is being mean to a student at school. Well, the student can get away from that, at least temporarily, by coming home. But if a classmate is being mean to a student over text or social media, they can’t get away from it, even if they leave school. They will still be confronted or reminded by it whenever they turn on or even look at the computer, the phone or the watch they use to interact with others online. That makes it uniquely powerful in terms of potential mental health effects.  Corrie Pikul, Brown University

How the Ivy League Broke America

 The Six Sins of the Meritocracy

1. The system overrates intelligence.  
2. Success in school is not the same thing as success in life. 
3. The game is rigged. 
4. The meritocracy has created an American caste system.
5. The meritocracy has damaged the psyches of the American elite. 
6. The meritocracy has provoked a populist backlash that is tearing society apart.   David Brooks, The Atlantic