3/16         First, let me continue to call your attention to the 50th Anniversary Celebration on April 4, details on the invitation linked below.

                This week's highlight is Honors Fellow Andrea Benjamin's event Tuesday evening:

• Please join us for "Local Politics in Action," an interactive discussion with Honors Fellow Andrea Benjamin, Tuesday, 3/18 from 6-8 PM in G421 Mason Hall (seminar room in the Perlman Honors Commons). Supper will be included! Think national politics is getting stale because the presidential candidates look set? Local politics is always active and frequently has more impact on citizens than national politics. Have you ever wondered how city governments make decisions and deal with problems? Come find out by being a city politician for an evening! Together, we will tackle an issue in city politics and try to resolve it as a group. This a very interactive approach to politics will not require any previous political science knowledge, just that you come prepared to interact with others and think critically.

3/13         I apologize for my inconsistent blogging (if we can still call it that) during the last month.  I had a bit of a setback.  Although I have run on Michigan snow and ice for almost 25 years with impunity (though felled in California when, mesmerized by natural beauty to which I was unaccustomed, I tripped over a California-sized curb and broke my wrist), I fell on ice masquerading as sidewalk while running on the Monday of Spring Break (Did someone say "Spring" Break?  Did someone say Spring "Break"?)  In any case, after surgery to insert the mandatory plate and screws, etc., I am back on the mend.

The main thing I want to bring to everyone's attention is upcoming gala:

HONORS 50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2008

There will be an amazing array of activities, from vignettes ofHonors classes, to presentations of Honors theses by graduating seniors, to a special Lunch With Honors with Honors Alum Thomas Bombelles on Corporate Responsibility and the Global AIDS crisis, to a wonderful lecture by Ralph Williams.

You can find all the details on the official invitation here.

2/3           After a two-week hiatus, we are back in action.  There is a really wonderful Lunch With Honors with Derek Bermel coming up this week on Wednesday and other activities too.  I'm on the road as I make this entry, so I will just paste in the info from the Honors Events webpage:

• Our next Lunch with Honors event will welcome Derek Bermel. Described as "an eclectic with wide open ears," Derek Bermel, a University of Michigan alumnus, has been widely hailed by colleagues, critics, and audiences around the globe for his creativity and theatricality as a composer of chamber, symphonic, dance, theater, and pop works, and his virtuosity and charisma as a clarinetist, conductor, and jazz and rock musician. Known for drawing freely from a rich variety of musical genres -- including classical, jazz, pop, rock, blues, and gospel -- he filters the sounds of the world through his own musical palette, crafting a singular artistic vision.
  Seating is limited, so if you're interested in attending, e-mail John Cantu as soon as possible. We hope to see you there!
  
  
• Want to introduce next year's entering Honors class to all the great things about Honors? Want to share your experience with prospective Honors students and parents? Want to work on a great team of other Honors students? Apply to work as an Honors Peer Advisor for summer Orientation! We need up to 8 Honors students for our team of academic peer advisors for Summer Orientation. We are looking for lively Honors students who can describe the Program, answer questions, and talk honestly in positive terms about their experience in here at Michigan. We need people who can work in groups or take individual initiative. Peer advisors help with backpack & registration, give group presentations on Honors courses, talk individually with incoming students, and organize and lead extra activities. This is easily combinable with other summer projects in Ann Arbor (lab or library research, some classes, some other part-time jobs).
  DATES: weekdays 10 June to 8 August 2008; vacation work-around is possible
  TIMES: 10-12 hours per week, scheduled in two-hour blocks
  PAY: $8.75 per hour
  How to apply? Come to a group meeting on Thursday, 2/7/2008, 4-5 pm. Honors Lounge, 1330 Mason Hall.
  Can't make the group meeting? Email Donna Wessel Walker. Give your full name, UMID, year, concentration (if any). Tell me what would make you a great peer advisor and what your favorite movie is (yes, of all time).
  DEADLINE for email application: Thursday, 2/7/08, 5 PM.
  

1/21         Not much going on last week after a flurry of activity the week before, including the Honors Talent Show!  However, this week we have our first Lunch With Honors of the Term:

• At noon this Thursday, January 24 in the Honors Lounge (1330 Mason Hall), we will be welcoming Dr. Chuck Freilich, who will be speaking on Israeli-American relations. He was Israel's Deputy National Security Adviser for Foreign Affairs. Now a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center's International Security Program, his primary areas of expertise are U.S. Middle East policy and Israeli national security policy. He is currently writing a book on Israeli national security decision-making processes and teaches Political Science at Tel Aviv and Hebrew Universities. He also co-directs a Middle Eastern affairs consultancy.

1/6            I hope everyone had a great break.  I stayed pretty close to home myself, though it was quite a joy watching the Wolverines beat the Gators on New Year's Day.  Anyway, it's the start of a new semester and we have a lot of great events coming up.  This week there will be two Honors events this coming week:

1.  “Where have all the Frogs Gone?  Global Amphibian Extinction”  a series of events with Matt Chatfield, Ph.D. candidate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Why are amphibians declining and facing extinction around the world?  What can be done about it?  Come learn about the most recent research in this exciting environmental field in a series of events; you are welcome to attend one or all of these sessions, depending on space available. 

                 Tue, Jan 8, 5:10 pm - Discussion with Matt Chatfield (email Matt Chatfield: matchat@umich.edu for papers to read beforehand and the location of the discussion)

                 Wed, Jan 9, 5:10 pm-- Lecture by Dr. Elizabeth Jockusch, U Connecticut 1024 Dana Building

                 Wed, Jan 9, 7:00 pm - Dinner with Dr. Jockusch at a local restaurant.  (limited to a few students, chosen from those who participate in the discussion and attend the lecture.  Interested in the dinner?   Email Matthew Chatfield (mattchat@umich.edu) with your name, year, concentration and why you would like to have dinner with Dr. Jockusch.  Dinner likely to be at Seva.

2.  “Build your Own Utopia” with Corina Kesler, Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature

Build your own utopia! What does it take to create an ideal community? How would you do it? Who would you include? who would you exclude? Join Honors Fellow Corina Kessler for an exercise that is better than reality TV.

Friday, Jan. 11,  12:00-1:30    Honors Lounge   Lunch included.

12/2         I am writing this in the Chicago O'Hare Airport, waiting for a plane back to Detroit after a very successful celebration of Honors 50th Anniversary with Chicago alums, hosted by Rick and Judy Perlman, whose names you will no doubt know from their wonderful gift of the Perlman Honors Commons.  Michigan faculty Don Cameron, Kathleen Channing, and Derek Collins were all there also, giving the alums a peep at the intellectual riches on offer at the University (and in the Honors Program) these days.  Don Cameron spoke of his almost fifty-year experience with Great Books; Kathleen Channing presented a fascinating session on politics and memory, taking the German experience after WWII as example; and Derek Collins discussed magic in the ancient period.  A fabulous event!

             This week we welcome Agnieszka Graff for Lunch With Honors on Thursday, December 6, at noon in the Honors Lounge (1330 Mason Hall). Agnieszka Graff teaches American studies and gender studies at the University of Warsaw.  She will be discussing her work on new forms of intolerance in Europe.  The author of A World Without Women: Gender in Polish Public Life (Warsaw: W.A.B., 2001), she is a regular contributor to Gazeta Wyborcza, Krytyka Polityczna, Res Publica Nowa, and many other Polish periodicals. She is also the translator of Virginia Wolff’s A Room of One’s Own and a leading figure in the Polish women’s movement.

11/25       With the start of registration,  please note the course information detailed in the posts for 11/18:  Winter 2008 Honors courses , courses that satisfy the Literature and Ideas Requirement, and note especially a set of new seminar-like courses that we call LSA Honors Initiative Courses.

                Two big events this week:

• Amelia Templeton, "What to Do With the Iraqi Refugees?," Lunch With Honors, Thursday, noon, Honors Lounge (1330 Mason).  Templeton is a free-lance journalist in the Middle East, and has reported for Marketplace Radio, NPR, and "60 Minutes".

• Michael Aylard, Honors Fellow and Ph.D. student in Economics, will host a presentation and discussion on the subject of the mathematical and philosophical concept of infinity on Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30 in the Perlman Commons with dinner catered by Zingerman's.
  

11/18       Registration starts soon so:     Winter 2008 Honors courses are now listed on our web pages, as are courses that satisfy the Literature and Ideas Requirement.    What I really want to draw your attention to is a set of new seminar-like courses that we call LSA Honors Initiative Courses.  You can find full details on the linked page, but here is the lineup.  You will really want to check these courses out!!

• "Tales from the City: Narratives and Urban Life,"Janet Hart, Cultural Anthropology 258, Section 001

•  "Shakespeare in Performance," Steven Mullaney, English 140, Section 004

• "Catastrophe: Natural Disaster & Human Society," Douglas Northrop, History 208, Section 002 and AAPTIS 291, Section 001

• "Stalin and Stalinism," Ronald Suny, History 302, Section 001 and POLSCI 389, Section 006

• "Exhibiting Mesopotamia: Art, Politics and the Museum," Margaret Root, Honors 251, Section 001 and History of Art 306, Section 001

• "Political and Development in Asia," Ashnu Varshney, Political Science 389, Section 004

• "Separation, Loss, and Reunion," Albert Cain, Psychology 203, section 001

• "Health and Population in South Africa in Transition," Barbara Anderson, Sociology 295, section 001  (N.B. This course includes an optional two-week trip to South Africa for additional credit!!)
  

11/13           Sorry, I was too bummed by the loss to Wisconsin to add an entry Sunday night.  So I've got to make up for lost time.

                     This afternoon , Tamar Carroll met with about 25 or so students who analyzed media portrayals of the War on Drugs by watching and discussing some episodes of The Wire.  And this Thursday at noon in the Honors Lounge in 1330 Mason Hall, Dr. Michael Turner, Bruce & Diana Rauner Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, will join us for Lunch With Honors.  Dr. Turner's research focuses on the application of modern ideas in elementary particle theory to cosmology and astrophysics. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a leading proponent of the theory of the origin of the universe known as the "Cold Dark Matter Theory."

                      Registration for next semester is just around the corner.   Winter 2008 Honors courses are now listed on our web pages, as are courses that satisfy the Literature and Ideas Requirement.    What I really want to draw your attention to is a set of new seminar-like courses that we call LSA Honors Initiative Courses.  You can find full details on the linked page, but here is the lineup.  You will really want to check these courses out!!

• "Tales from the City: Narratives and Urban Life,"Janet Hart, Cultural Anthropology 258, Section 001

•  "Shakespeare in Performance," Steven Mullaney, English 140, Section 004

• "Catastrophe: Natural Disaster & Human Society," Douglas Northrop, History 208, Section 002 and AAPTIS 291, Section 001

• "Stalin and Stalinism," Ronald Suny, History 302, Section 001 and POLSCI 389, Section 006

• "Exhibiting Mesopotamia: Art, Politics and the Museum," Margaret Root, Honors 251, Section 001 and History of Art 306, Section 001

• "Political and Development in Asia," Ashnu Varshney, Political Science 389, Section 004

• "Separation, Loss, and Reunion," Albert Cain, Psychology 203, section 001

• "Health and Population in South Africa in Transition," Barbara Anderson, Sociology 295, section 001  (N.B. This course includes an optional two-week trip to South Africa for additional credit!!)
  

11/4             Ohmigod, what a game on Saturday: "It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine!  It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine!  Etc. . . . ")

                     I spent earlier Saturday at the Symposium for this year's Tanner Lecture, which was delivered by Brian Skyrms.  Professor Skyrms gave about 60 to 70 of us at Thursday's Lunch With Honors a fascinating glimpse of the way in which evolutionary game theory can explain the existence of "signaling systems" pretty much ex nihilo.   I hope a lot of you were able to make the Lecture on Friday.

                   This week, Honors Fellow, Andrea Benjamin, of Political Science, will be doing a Fellows' event on electoral politics on Friday, at 1 pm in the Honors Lounge.  Stay tuned.

                   And, at long last, we can announce the winners of this year's Honors Post Card Contest:    And the winners are…
Matt Davis, for either the Most Misleading or the Coolest postcard (the Honors staff couldn't come to a consensus on this one): a postcard from Oslo, Norway, featuring an Afghan mujahid holding a rifle while seated on a bunk bed, alone, in the midst of complete wilderness:





Elyse Leonard, for You're Never Far from a Michigan Bar: a photo of the exterior of the "Michigan Bar" in Barcelona, Spain:






Amelia Wallace, for Sunday in the Park without George: a photo of herself in the topiary at the Old Deaf School Park in Columbus, Ohio, which replicates the scene in Seurat's painting "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte":



and Hui Zhang, for China Shakes the World: a postcard showing the Anhui Flyover in Beijing, China:



10/28           I hope you were able to make Prof. H. D. Cameron's 50th Anniversary, Parents' Weekend Lecture: "A Great Books Sample."  It was a truly wonderful occasion, especially for those of us who don't have the privilege of getting to attend his lectures in Great Books 191 and 192.  And meeting so many parents at the reception was both fun and gratifying.  It is very nice to know that their sons and daughters are having so much fun in the Program.

                   This week, we have two big events coming up, on the same day, actually.

• Lunch With Honors with Brian Skyrms, a world-famous philosopher, who is best known for his work on the evolution of cooperation, norms, and "social contracts."  Professor Skyrms will be with us in the Honors Lounge, 1330 Mason Hall, on Thursday, November 1, at noon.

• Nicholas Bowman, Honors Fellow in Psychology, will host a discussion of college rankings, admissions, etc: “The Rankings we Love to Hate: a Hands-on exploration of College Rankings,” Thursday, November 1, 6-8 p.m, Perlman Seminar Room.
  

10/21          This year is the 50th Anniversary of the LSA Honors Program!  As part of the celebration, and as part also of Parents' Weekend, Professor H. Don Cameron will give a lecture titled "Great Lectures."  Professor Cameron's Great Books courses have been an important part of the Honors experience for generations of LSA Honors students, so this should be a wonderful way to celebrate the 50th.  Please join us Friday at 4 pm in Angell Hall Auditorium B.

10/20          I hope everyone had a great break and rest of the week.  I spent the week giving some lectures at Nanjing Normal University in China.  If you want to see some photos from Steve's Excellent Chinese Adventure, go here.

10/7            I'm on the road as I write this, so I'll have to be brief.  Big Lunch With Honors plans this week:

• Ann Stevenson, the distinguished British poet, and alumna of the University of Michigan, Monday, October 8, at noon.

• Ken  Buckfire, Co-Founder and Managing Director of the Wall Street consulting firm, Miller Buckfire, who was an Honors graduate in Economics and Philosophy, Wednesday, October 10, at noon.

• Gheorghe Ciuhandu, Mayor of Timisuora, Romania, site of the 1989 uprising that led to the overthrow of Ceausescu, Friday, October 12, at noon.

9/30           What  an amazing Lunch With Honors with Arthur Greene!  A student asked Professor Greene how he had found his way to his career in piano performance and teaching, and, after a moment's reflection in which his eyes seemed to say, "should I really go into this?," he launched into the most amazing tale: growing up on the Lower East Side of New York to radically left parents who saw music as frivolous but who got him lessons with an amazing woman who lived across the street with two Steinways and who "dressed nobly," but then leaving New York at age ten to move to a tiny town in Massachusetts, which had little music, and battling depression through high school.  While an undergrad at Yale, Greene rediscovered the piano and through practicing "like a madman" he got into Julliard, and the rest, as they say, is history.  All in all, it was a quite incredible hour.  I know everyone who went will always remember it.  Like many students in the audience, I went to hear Greene's Rachmaninoff's Second on Saturday--it was superb.

                On Thursday, October 4, at 7 pm in the Exhibit Museum, Honors Fellow John Speth will host an event that will give Honors students a special look at the Anthropology Museum.  Here's what Professor Speth says about the event: "Ever wonder what our early human ancestors looked like 2 million years ago? How we know they walked on their hind legs when what we find is mostly teeth and parts of jaws and skulls? Any idea what the first humanly made tools look like? Ever seen a Neanderthal up close and personal? Want to know how archaeologists figure out when people first domesticated plants like corn and began to farm? Ever seen an atlatl, the weapon that came before the bow and arrow? Come to the Museum of Anthropology at 7 PM on Thursday, October 4 for a behind-the-scenes look at what archaeologists do. Specifically, on the 4th Floor of the Ruthven Natural Science Museum. Since the Ruthven Building officially closes at 5:00 PM, we’ll meet at the front door of the museum (where the two black panther statues are)."

                Then next Sunday, October 7 from 1-2 PM, Honors will be sponsoring an Eco-Honors on the Huron River canoe trip. In addition to the canoe trip itself, the "Eco" part comes in because participants will be expected to help by cleaning up any waste that might be found on the river during the trip. In return, it is free of charge. The event will also conclude with a pizza party! If you're interested in participating, please contact Honors RA Michael Adler.

                The following week we have an amazing slate of three Lunch With Honors:

• Ann Stevenson, the distinguished British poet, and alumna of the University of Michigan, Monday, October 8, at noon.

• Ken  Buckfire, Co-Founder and Managing Director of the Wall Street consulting firm, Miller Buckfire, who was an Honors graduate in Economics and Philosophy, Wednesday, October 10, at noon.

• Gheorghe Ciuhandu, Mayor of Timisuora, Romania, site of the 1989 uprising that led to the overthrow of Ceausescu, Friday, October 12, at noon.
  

9/23           We had a great time with James Kynge last Tuesday.  The discussion was incredibly lively, about as good as any I can remember.  One quite powerful point that came out, for me anyway, was the way in which U.S. (and world) economic prosperity over the last fifteen or so years has depended on low interest and inflation rates made possible by the substitution of Chinese-produced goods for more expensive ones.  In effect, China has been "exporting deflation."  However, just this year prices, including of labor, have begun to rise in China, and Kynge worries that China may begin to "export inflation" with upward pressure on interest rates and dampening economies globally, including, of course, in the U.S.

                This Wednesday, September 26, at noon in the Honors Lounge, we will have Lunch with Honors with the world-famous pianist Arthur Greene, Professor of Piano in the University of Michigan School of Music.  Professor Greene will also be playing Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto in an Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra concert this coming Saturday night, at 8 pm in Hill Auditorium, to which ten lucky Honors students will get to go.

9/16           Last week was kind of quiet in the Honors Program as students were busy with the beginning of term, meeting with advisors, and so on.  This week, Honors events start off with a bang. 

•       Brunch with Honors, Tuesday, September 18, at 10:30 am: James Kynge, author of China Shakes the World.

Kynge will also be giving a talk later that day (Tuesday) at 4:30 pm in the Power Center.  We are hoping for a large Honors presence there also.

On Wednesday, September 26, we will have a Lunch with Honors with the world-famous pianist Arthur Greene, Professor of Piano in the University of Michigan School of Music.  A wonderfully talented and extraordinarily interesting performer, Greene is especially noted for his serial performances of the classical piano repertoire.  He has performed the complete solo piano works of Brahms in Boston, the 10 sonata cycle of Scriabin in Sofia, Kiev, and Salt Lake City, and last year he and his Michigan students performed the complete solo piano works of Chopin in eight concerts during this past March and April.  This should be a quite amazing treat.

We had an enormous response for tickets to see Terry Gross (of NPR's Fresh Air) at the Michigan Theatre on Friday, September 28, so we will be making it possible for ten to twenty Honors students to go.

Finally, a heads up: this fall marks the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the LSA Honors Program in the Fall of 1957.  We will be celebrating throughout this year, and perhaps into next fall, in all sorts of ways.  Stay tuned.

9/3             Welcome back, everyone!  Although I haven't been writing anything in this space for five months (!), we were busy all summer with Orientation for all entering students.  In more than the obvious ways, it is my favorite time of year, since I get to meet with all our incoming students in small groups and really talk.  You'd be surprised how much it helps me remember everyone.

                   Last Friday (before gloomy Saturday, we needn't talk about that), we had a very successful Honors Kickoff.  Many thanks to Shuen-fu Lin, Twila Tardif, and David Porter, who gave such interesting perspectives on the issues raised by James Kynge's China Shakes the World.  Among other fascinating points, Twila Tardif pointed out that although 30% of all Chinese adolescents and almost all students are learning English, only 0.06% of American students are learning Chinese.  There's no time like the present to start though, since this is LSA's theme year on China: ChinaNow.  I also want to encourage all Honors students to think about applying for the Winter 2008 Honors in Beijing.  Stay tuned for announcement of information sessions for both Honors in Florence and Honors in Beijing.

                   Our first big event will be a special Brunch With Honors with James Kynge on Tuesday, September 18, at 10:30 am in the Honors Lounge, 1330 Mason Hall.  This will be a wonderful opportunity to meet and talk with the author himself and ask the questions that occurred to you as you read the book.  Kynge will also give a talk the next day, and there will be a reception afterwards.                  
  
4/8              Before my weekly update of goings-on in the Program, I want to let you know about an exciting development at the Honors website.  Jessie Grieser of our staff has put together a set of web pages with oodles of useful information for Invited Students that is designed both to help prospective students decide whether to come to Michigan and the Honors Program and, if they do, how to navigate the confusing array of housing applications, orientation, the Honors Book, etc., etc.  Congratulations and many thanks to Jessie for doing such a great job.

                    Last week's highlight was President Mary Sue Coleman's Lunch With Honors.  It was a free and easy conversation with the person charged with presiding over one of the great universities in the world, and it didn't disappoint.  I personally found it pretty inspiring to hear President Coleman speak from the heart about the values that make this such a special place.

                   This week will be the lull before the storm with registration continuing as we get ready for next week's end of classes and beginning of exams.  It's hard to believe that graduation is less than three weeks away. 

                   Next week we will have a couple of important events to finish up the year.  Monday, Honors alumnus Kenneth Buckfire will be here for a Lunch With Honors.  Ken Buckfire is Co-Founder and Managing Director of the Wall Street consulting firm, Miller Buckfire.   Through his generosity, four Honors students--Matthew Coleman, Elissa Dickson, Franco Muzzio, and Pete Troyan--will be able to extend their studies at the University of Michigan next year as Buckfire Fifth-Year Scholars.

                   Finally, we will celebrate the end of classes next week with a gathering on Wednesday, April 18, at 4 pm in the Honors Lounge that will feature Justin Wedes's klezmer band.  If you 't know klezmer, you know why you will want to be there--and if you don't, well, trust me.  See you next Wednesday!! 

4/1              Lots of interesting stuff last week, including Friday's Lunch With Honors with Krzysztof Czyzewski, which by an egregious oversight, I neglected to mention last week.   Czyzewski, who was invited to the University to give the prestigious annual Copernicus lecture, is a social activist, poet, essayist, publisher, and founder of the Borderlands Foundation of Arts, Cultures, and Nations in Sejny, a small town near
the Polish border with Lithuania.  I was unable to be there, but I heard it was very interesting.

                   Many people came for last Thursday's Fresh Ideas on graduate study in the liberal arts.  It was a very interesting discussion that ranged broadly.  Bottom line: if you have been discouraged from thinking about graduate school because the academic job market has been so grim, think again.  Things are changing--by the time you folks get your Ph.D.'s there will be lots of jobs.  Just remember, you heard it here first. 

                Tuesday we will be honored to have UM President Mary Sue Coleman with us for Lunch With Honors.  That's right!  Mary Sue will be in the House!  Q: What Does a President of the greatest university in the world talk about?  A: Anything she wants to!  See you there if you are lucky enough to get a seat.

                Also registration starts in earnest this week.  You can find a list of Honors Courses for Fall 2007 (with links to the LSA Course Guide!!) here. 

3/25            We had an unbelievably awesome Lunch With Honors with Bob Mankoff this past Friday.  I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time.  Here's an example that Bob gave of a cartoon that is funny (though not, perhaps aesthetically elegant).  A Tony Soprano type is with his henchman and says: "If these walls had ears, and knew what was good for them, they'd shut the f*ck up."  He had a million of them.  Another very funny story: David Mamet, the famous playwright sends Mankoff a letter saying that he is "taking the liberty of sending along several cartoons" that he had done.  In his thank you note, Mankoff includes a PS: "I am taking you the liberty of including a play of mine  . . . ."  If you want to see the would-have-been-Syracuse basketball star hit 10 "jump" shots in a row, check out this YouTube video.

                   On Thursday of this week, I will host a Fresh Ideas session on graduate study in the liberal arts.  It is my impression that many Honors students know a lot more about medical and law school, for example, than they do about a graduate school.  There are good demographic reasons for this: it has been very difficult to get academic jobs over the last thirty years, so graduate schools have discouraged any but the most committed from applying.  There are, however, fundamental demographic changes going on.  With contemplated retirements over the next ten years, there should be a lot more academic jobs opening up.  So now is the time to think about what you would have to do to position yourself for what I consider the best life in the world: getting paid to think, read, write, and talk about what you are really interested in.  If that sounds good to you, join me in the Perlman Honors Commons Thursday, March 29, at 4 pm.

3/19            Big doings this past Saturday as the First Annual Honors Paper Conference, sponsored by Honors Peer Mentors (known for the slogan: "Be Smarter; Live Longer") was held in the morning and the Phi Beta Kappa Induction Ceremony was held in the afternoon.  Congratulations to the presenters at the conference, which I thought was a great success, and to the new PBK initiates.  May you may only gain in smarts and live long!
   
                   This Friday at noon, we will welcome to Lunch With Honors, Robert Mankoff, who is a brilliant cartoonist and the Cartoon Editor for  The New Yorker.  It should be a wonderful occasion--Mankoff will be bringing some of his cartoons along.  (You can hear a Fresh Air interview with him here.)

                   Next Thursday, at 4 pm in the Perlman Honors Commons, I will host a Fresh Ideas session on opportunities for graduate study in the liberal arts.  In my experience, students tend to know a lot more about medical school and law school than they do about graduate school.  Unbelievable as it may seem, you can actually get paid to do graduate study (and not rack up mounds of debt!).  Moreover, there is, in my view, simply no better life than that of a professor.  I still can get over the fact that I get paid to read, think, talk, and write about what I am really interested in.  What could be better than that?
For many years, we have discouraged all but the most passionate and committed students, because the job market was so grim, but that will be changing substantially within the next decade.  Come to Fresh Ideas next Thursday to find out why and to find out how to position yourself to think seriously and possibly take advantage of these emerging opportunities.

3/12            We had two very successful Lunch With Honors last week with Dr. Michael Stein and Allen Buchanan.  Thanks very much to all who came.  This week's highlight is the First Honors Paper Conference, being put on by the Honors Peer Mentors, which is being put on this coming Saturday, March 17, in the Perlman Honors Commons from 9 am to 1 pm.  The topic will be "What It Means to be Human."  This should be a fascinating set of presentations and discussions.  Please come for as much as you can.

                   Also this Wednesday at  noon in the Dining Room of the South Quad Cafeteria, there will be an Honors Roundtable for anyone who wants to come and share lunch and interesting conversation.  See y'all there.

3/04            I hope everyone had a great break!  I was on the road doing various philosophy gigs.   We have two great Lunch With Honors coming up this week.

•  Monday, March 5, noon, 1330 Mason Hall:  Dr. Michael Stein, Professor of Medicine, Brown University, and author of The Lonely Patient.
  
  Dr. Stein will discuss his new book, which deals with the experiences of both chronic and terminally ill patients, and the special problems involved in treating them. On February 6, Dr. Stein was also the guest on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air," . As a medical doctor himself, Dr. Stein was confronted with having to treat his own brother-in-law as he was dying, and discovered that his advanced medical training did not prepare him for dealing with the issues involved in offering him consolation when it was most needed. This led Dr. Stein to begin investigating the psychological impact of illness on such patients, and how medical professionals might better learn to serve their unique needs.

• Friday, March 9, noon, 1330 Mason Hall: Prof. Allen Buchanan, James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy and Policy Studies, Duke University

          Professor Buchanan, who is one of the foremost bioethicists and writers on a                   wider range of ethical issues, including in the international realm (secession and               international law will discuss the ethics of biotechnology and human development.

2/18            What a difference a couple of weeks makes.  It's only 11 degrees out now, but it was sunny for my run on the sunny Potawotami trail this afternoon--Glorious!  And it's going to be much warmer tomorrow, which means that the pipes going to our washing machine will thaw, and we will be able to wash clothes again.  To go through winter in Michigan is to be thankful for little pleasures.

                    Since next week will be break, I want to give everyone a heads up now about an upcoming "Lunch with Honors" on Monday, March 5, with Michael Stein, a very interesting physician who is the author of The Lonely Patient: How We Experience Illness.   This should be really fascinating--usual time and place: noon in the Honors Lounge in 1330 Mason Hall.

                     A couple of weeks ago, Honors Fellow Silvia Pedraza of our Sociology Department took a group of students to see the play, "Language Lessons," at the Performance Network.  Here is a photo of the group at dinner at Cottage Inn before the play:


2/4/07         It is 4 degrees out after a low last night of -4 or so, but at least the wind has died down a little from yesterday.  It was quite an experience running along the Huron yesterday afternoon--fine, unless you were going west.  Facing a long uphill climb back home (going, you guessed it, west), I finally bailed out and called my son on my cell phone to come pick me up.  Thank God for cell phones, and thanks Will for picking me up.

          Last week's discussion on immigration policy and practice post 9/11, hosted by Honors Fellow Nadine Naber on Tuesday night in the Perlman Honors Commons was a great success. 

            Tomorrow, Honors Fellow Catherine Squires, of Communication Studies will be hosting a lunch discussion as part of an all-day event, featuring Dr. Daniel Brouwer of Arizona State University, co-sponsored by Honors and the Lesbian Gay Queer Research Initiative: "Making Sense of 'God Hates Fags' and 'Thank God for 9/11': Milbloggers' Responses to Anti-Gay Protests at Military Funerals."  Dr. Brouwer's work focuses on the rhetoric of HIV/AIDS, queer publics, performance and social protest.  Monday, he will be concerned with anti-gay protests conducted since June 2005 by the Reverend Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church at funerals of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Honors students can sign up for all or just part of the day's events, which will be as follows:

11:30am: Dr. Brouwer will meet with Honors students to walk through art exhibit at Lane Hall

12:15-1:30pm: Lunch and discussion (Honors Lounge: 1330 Mason Hall)

5-6pm: Public presentation: Making sense of "God Hates Fags" - Michigan Room at the Michigan League

             Then, on Thursday, February 8, from 5 until 7 PM in the seminar room of the Perlman Honors Commons, Honors Fellow Vadim Jigoulov of Near Eastern Studies a will be conducting an informal discussion of a book by a leading Israeli archaeologist, I. Finkelstein, and Neil Asher Silberman, David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (2006). As a creative and somewhat controversial interpretation of archaeological remains and biblical texts, the book raises important questions regarding the messianic tradition in Jewish and Christian thought, the historicity of biblical accounts, and, ultimately, about the two foundational figures in Western culture, David and Solomon.

1/28/07       AAAARGH!  My internet connection went out on me this evening (the vulnerabilities of modern life), so here I am in my office doing my weekly gig.  I saw some LSA Honors students at the South Asian Awareness Network 2007 Conference at the Michigan Union on Saturday.  I was giving a talk on connections, or lack of them, between doing right and doing well, if I can put it that way.  It was a good group and a lot of fun.  Actually, it was kind of unclear whether I was going to make it.  My session was scheduled for 2:30, and at 2:15, I was near Ypsilanti in a limo on I-94.  I was coming back from a talk at the University of Toronto Law School on Friday, and got caught in weather delays (mostly an interminably long line for de-icing) at the Toronto airport.  Everything worked out well.

I gather from John Cantu, who I ran into on an Ann Arbor bus going home after the SAAN Conference, that Yang Wei's Lunch With Honors was a big hit.  Over 40 got to hear the pipa master and many stayed after to chat.

This Tuesday, we have a very interesting event on immigration sponsored by Honors Fellow, Nadine Naber.   Professor Naber will present a panel discussion on "Immigrant Policies, Post 9/11."  The participants will include Noel Saleh (ACLU attorney and president of ACCESS/Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services); Nazih Hassan (President, Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor); and Professor Naber herself (Assistant Professor of Women's Studies and American Culture at the University of Michigan).  Snacks will also be served. Seating for this event is limited, so those students who are interested in attending should contact Mrs. Liina Wallin in order to reserve a space as soon as possible.

1/21/07      Gabrielle Civil's Lunch With Honors was quite an event--challenging, stimulating, wonderfully engaging, and thought-provoking.  This Friday, we are in for another treat: Yang Wei, master of the pipa, a Chinese stringed instrument, will be joining us in the Honors Lounge (1306 Mason Hall) for another Lunch with Honors.  Born in China in 1960, Yang Wei began studying various Chinese instruments at age 6 before concentrating at 13 on the pipa, a pear-shaped, four-stringed lute-like instrument that Chinese musicians have played for more than 2,000 years.  This should be a really extraordinary and fascinating event.  Don't miss it!

1/7/07         Another term is underway.  I hope everyone had a great break--mine was pretty quiet, enjoying family, not enjoying the Rose Bowl, etc.  You know, the usual.  There are a number of news items to begin the semester.  First, we have two upcoming events, a Lunch With Honors with UM LSA Honors grad, Gabrielle Civil, on Tuesday, January 16, and an Honors Fellow event on Thursday, January 18, with Silvia Pedraza.

• Our first Lunch with Honors of the semester will be with performance artist Gabrielle Civil (see profile in the 2004 Honors Forum) on Tuesday, January 16 at noon until approximately 1:30 PM in the Honors Lounge (1306 Mason Hall). Gabrielle is currently an Assistant Professor of English at the College of St. Catherine in Saint Paul, Minnesota, as well as a performance artist. She graduated from the Honors Program in 1995 with dual Honors concentrations in English and Comparative Literature. She defines her artistic sensibilities as being "at the intersection of poetry, installation and conceptual art."  For her "Lunch with Honors" event, Gabrielle will be giving a presentation which she calls "Brown Skin, Brown Bag," focusing on race, performance and her experiences as a black woman in the academy..

• On Thursday, January 18 from 6 until 10 PM, Honors Fellow Silvia Pedraza will take a group of students to see the play “Language Lessons” by Joseph Zettelmaier at the Performance Network here in Ann Arbor. A world premiere from the author of “The Stillness Between Breaths” (Winner, Best New Play 2005, the Oakland Press). What can we learn from strangers? How do we bridge any gap, whether between cultures, perspectives, or even between the past and our memory of it? A touching story about a Russian ballerina who arrives on tour to stay in the guest house of an American diplomat. “Language Lessons” bubbles with Zettelmaier’s knack for creating unique characters and exploring life’s deeper meaning with humor and compassion.

I announced our other big news at the end of the last semester, but not yet here.  So here it is:

Through a generous gift from Honors alumnus Kenneth Buckfire, Co-Founder and Managing Director of the Wall Street consulting firm, Miller Buckfire, we will be able to make available a fantastic scholarship opportunity for fifth year study (for next year) for Honors students at the University of Michigan.  Details are yet to be worked out, but since we will be formally announcing a competition for the first scholarships for next year soon, I wanted to let you know in advance.

The idea is to help students who would profit from an additional year of study at
Michigan.  There are various possible models, for example, someone who would seriously consider graduate school in an academic discipline, but, perhaps because he or she has come to the subject too late, has not yet put together the kind of record that would make him or her most attractive to top programs.  Such a person might take a fifth year here, perhaps getting an M.A., but putting him or herself into a position to get into a top Ph.D. program elsewhere.  Or perhaps someone is already involved in a dual degree program here that would be enhanced by a fifth year of study.  Or a double concentration. 

Whatever, the idea would be to help students who could deepen their undergraduate
education here and be better positioned for future study or work.

12/10/06      Another long hiatus with the end of term.  I just got back from a conference on my book in London , and I'm ready for the end of term push.  We're now in the midst of freshman registration.  Please note the list of Honors courses , including Honors 135, Lit & Ideas courses, and special Honors-sponsored seminars and courses.

Yesterday (Saturday) afternoon was the Honors Talent Show.  I'm sure it was wonderful; I really hated having to miss it.  This Wednesday from 2 to 6 pm will be the "Classes are Over", Pre-Exam Open House in the Honors Lounge in 1330 Mason Hall.  Back by popular demand for the second year, will be Professor Ruth Scodel, of Class Civ 101 fame, who will be teaching English Country Dance along with live music.  If you didn't get a chance to do this last year, don't miss it this time.  It's really a lot of fun.  See you there!

11/26/06      A long hiatus in anticipation of the Thanksgiving weekend.  I hope everyone had a great time.  It is hard to believe that we only have a few weeks left in the term.   What's more, registration for the Winter 2007 semester is about to start.  You can find a full listing of Honors Courses and courses that satisfy the Literature and Ideas requirement here.

This week, Honors Fellow, Sayan Bhattacharyya will be leading a panel discussion on the University of Michigan's role in Global Citizenship. It will take place on Thursday, November 30 from 5 until 7 PM in the Perlman Honors Commons and a pizza dinner will be provided.

11/13/06     We had a very interesting discussion today at Lunch With Honors with David Kostelanncik about his work in the State Department in pursuing diplomatic engagement with countries in Europe.  Pretty fascinating stuff.  And last week's LWH with Steve Marmion of the Royal Shakespeare Company was also an outstanding success, as was Medha Tare's Honors Fellow's session on child language learning.

Big news this week is Tuesday night's "Honors Ethics Pizza Dinner Theater" at 6 pm in the Honors Lounge.  Should be fun.

Also, we should have an announcement of some very good news soon coming out the Marshall and Rhodes Scholarships competition.  Stay tuned!!

11/5/06      Congrats to Chris Melenovsky, who won the free copy of The Second-Person Standpoint at my book party last week, and thanks to everyone who came!  The next day we had a fascinating session on international law and business with Javier Rubinstein.  Javier's advice to students: study languages and learn other cultures.  He gave a wonderful example of how international dispute resolution is almost always about miscommunication because people interpret events and laws through the prism of their own culture: German and Swedish aeronautical companies disagreeing about the meaning of the Swedish response of 'OK' to a German message asking the Swedes to make a change.  Germans: 'OK' = "we agree"; Swedes: 'OK' = "we hear you."

More doings this week.  Steve Marmion , Assistant Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, will be with us on Friday at noon, for a Lunch With Honors. 

Lots going on next week also.  On Monday at noon, we will have David Kostelancik, current Deputy Director of the State Department's Office of North Central Europe, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs for another Lunch With Honors.

Then on Tuesday, at 6 pm, also in the Honors Lounge, we will have, in effect, a "Ethics Dinner Theater" (with pizza), when some actors, sponsored by the President's Ethics in Public Life Initiative and the Office of New Student Programs will present a series of vignettes that raise ethical issues that students face, followed by discussion.  Gosh, who ever thought (besides an old philosopher!) that ethics can actually be fun?! 

10/30/06   Last week's Lunch with Honors with Aleksander Kwasniewski was absolutely amazing--over eighty people packed in and riveted.  It is hard to imagine a wittier, more engaging, and more humane and insightful human being than the former President of Poland.  Also last week was Leanne Powner's Fellow's session on polling research and the upcoming election.

Much happening this week also.  Wednesday evening features Medha Tare's Fellow's session on early childhood language learning.  Then, on Thursday at 4pm, an absolutely unofficial Honors event: a book launch party for my new book, The Second-Person Standpoint,  at Shaman Drum Bookshop.   Any undergraduates who come can enter a drawing for a free copy.  If enough come, we may even have more, maybe something on the order of W. C. Fields's old joke: 1st prize, one week in Philadelphia; 2nd prize, two weeks in Philadelpia (get it? 2nd prize: 2 copies).

Then on Friday, we will have Lunch With Honors, this time with Javier Rubinstein, who has just been named Global General Counsel for PriceWaterhouseCoopers.  An LSA Honors grad, Rubinstein has created a fascinating career for himself in international business and law.  In addition to talking about his own experience, he will discuss some very interesting political and economic questions that are arising on the international scence.

10/22/06  Sorry, I lost a week there with the Fall Break.   We had an abbreviated week, but Friday featured the return of David Enders to give a presentation on Friday of Parents' Weekend: "What I learned at Michigan, and What I Didn't."

This week features an Honors Roundtable in South Quad at noon on Wednesday and then a Lunch with Honors on Friday at noon with Aleksander Kwasniewski, who was President of Poland from 1995 to 2005.  This should be an absolutely fascinating occasion.  President Kwasniewski is here to deliver the Copernicus Lecture, "Democratic Revolutions, International Conflict, and Global Citizenship," on Wednesday at 7:30 pm in Rackham Auditorium.  See you there!

10/8/06   How Sweet It Is.  I was with my son, Julian , at Connolly's, an Irish bar on 47th Street in New York on Saturday afternoon, as we watched the Tigers destroy the Bronx Bombers (if that's what they should now be called) and win a place in the American League Championship Series.  CONSIDER THIS: in the fourth inning of the second game, after the Yanks beat the Tigers handily in the first game 8-4, Johnny Damon crushed an upper-deck three-run homer off Justin Verlander to give the Yankees a 3-1 lead and a big leg up on a two-game lead in the series.  AND THEN THE BEST LINEUP MONEY CAN BUY DID NOT SCORE FOR TWENTY (20) MORE INNINGS.  That is simply unheard of.  I've just been finding myself laughing at the utter improbability (impossibility?) of the whole thing at odd moments over the last few days.  I experienced the '84 Tigers (our first summer in Ann Arbor), and early championships with my favorite Pittsburgh Pirates in '71 and '79, but this might become something else again.

This week's Honors Highlight is a Fresh Ideas session with Professor Michael LeRoy of the University of Illinois Institute on Labor and Industrial Relations.  Professor LeRoy will be talking about issues concerning compulsory national service:  "Compulsory Labor in a National Emergency: Public Service or Involuntary Servitude, the Case of Crippled Ports."

Join us on Thursday, October 12, at 4 pm in the Perlman Honors Commons:

                                                                               

10/3/06   OK, here are the lucky winners and categories of the 2006 LSA Honors Program Annual Summer Post Card Contest.  Congratulations to the Winners!!

Andrew Wilkinson, "Most Exotic"         

Jaye Stapelton, "Most Panoramic"        

Ellie Ferguson, "Most Dramatic"           

Monica Sendor, "Most Read Red"          

Sarah Na, "Closest to Home"                 

10/3/06   RESULTS OF SUMMER POST CARD CONTEST TO BE POSTED THIS EVENING. STAY TUNED!!!!!

10/1/06   Believe it or not, I'm writing this from London, where I was attending and giving a talk at a conference on the History of the Transcendental Turn (in Philosophy)--great conference and London is amazing as always (and amazingly expensive).  A number of us simply couldn't figure out how students can afford to live there.

           Anyway, this week in Honors will feature the second half of Annie Hesp's two sessions on Camino Santiago (this time the walk in the Arb on Tuesday at 4 pm).

          Some other coming attractions: next Thursday, October 12, at 4 pm Michael LeRoy of the University of Illinois Institute on Labor and Industrial Relations will join me in the Perlman Honors Commons for a Fresh Ideas session on whether and under what circumstances the government can properly force people to work.  This should be a fascinating discussion of issues about labor, the economy, and the state, that we should be talking more about.  Then the following Friday, October 20, at 4 pm, David Enders, author of Baghdad Bulletin, who was with us during Honors Kickoff, will return to Ann Arbor for a talk on Parents' Day.  Should be really interesting--stay tuned.

9/24/06   Two terrific events coming up that will be hosted by one of our Honors Fellows, Annie Hesp, who is a Ph.D. student in Romance Languages.  Annie studies a fascinating medieval pilgrimage in Northern Spain--Camino Santiago (St. James' Way).  Join her this Tuesday, September 26 at 4 pm in the Perlman Honors Commons and the following Tuesday, October 4 at 4 pm in the Arboretum as she gives us a window on this remarkable phenomenon.

Last week's Fresh Ideas with Professor Don Cameron was simply a delight.  Professor was at the top of his form, as is evidenced in the photo below, and the many students who attended (maybe as many as 50 altogether) simply couldn't get enough.




9/17/06   We had a good set of events last week and will this week also.  But first, let me tell you a very little known fact that I learned two days ago when I was in Lubbock, Texas, to give a couple of talks at Texas Tech University.  Lubbock may seem like the end of the earth, but it's actually pretty interesting and has, believe it or not, a growing wine industry.  The fact, which I'll bet you didn't know, is that Texas actually saved the French wine industry in the late nineteenth century.  You can read all about it here.

Now to this week's events. 

• Tuesday at 4 pm in the Perlman Honors Commons, Professor H. Don Cameron will join me in the first Fresh Ideas of the year.  Professor Cameron has taught Great Books to generations of Michigan students.  You won't want to miss this opportunity to get to know him "up close and personal," and learn how the boy who grew up in Saginaw came to be one of Michigan's most storied professors. 
  

• Wednesday at 12:10 in the South Quad Dining Hall, join me for lunch.  This will be a chance for me to get to know some of our students better and for you to get to know me.  If you want to know what I've been up to lately, you can find out here.  Hope to see you there!
  

9/10/06   Well, like the President and the most recent former President, I passed the BIG 60 this past weekend.  It seemed fine until all the cards I got seemed to striking the same note: it doesn't really matter if you're decrepit, because you're young at heart, or something like that.  Who needs that??

Anyway, we've got some good stuff coming up this week.

• Monday, September 11, noon in the Honors Lounge (in 1330 Mason Hall)
  

Prof. Edie Goldenberg of the Political Science Department will be joining us to discuss the The Michigan in Washington Program .

Michigan in Washington offers an opportunity for 20-25 University of Michigan undergraduates from all majors to spend a semester (Fall or Winter) in Washington, D.C. The program provides a chance for students to combine coursework with field research in an internship that reflects each student's area of interest while earning academic credit.

• Tuesday, September 12, from 4 to 5:30 PM in the Honors Lounge (1306 Mason Hall) there will be a very important information session for these HONORS IN FLORENCE and HONORS IN BEIJING. 

HONORS IN BEIJING is a new program, which will begin during the WINTER 2007 semester.  It is especially relevant for second- and third-year students.  APPLICATIONS FOR HONORS IN BEIJING WILL BE DUE RELATIVELY SOON, so if you have any interest in this amazing opportunity, you will definitely want to come.

HONORS IN FLORENCE is a one-month program that will be given again this coming May.  This program is especially relevant for first-, second-, and third-year students.  You can find further information here.

APPLICATIONS FOR HONORS IN FLORENCE WILL ALSO BE DUE RELATIVELY SOON, so you will definitely want to come if you have any interest.

9/1/06   A year and a few days later I pick up pen (or put down fingers on keys) again to restart my Honors blog.  I had a good year, but frankly missed the excitement and enthusiasm that swirls around the Honors Progam.  It is good to be back.

Today was our annual Honors Kickoff for entering freshmen.  This is the third year that we have built morning activities around the "Honors Book."  This year it was David Enders' Baghdad Bulletin.   David Enders is a 24-year-old UM grad who was Editor of the Michigan Daily and who, during his last semester at the University, went to Lebanon in January of 2003 to study abroad, but decided with war beginning in Iraq, to go to Baghdad and start up an English-language newspaper called, you got it, The Baghdad Bulletin.  The paper lasted several months through the spring and summer of 2003, until things got too hairy with the increasing resistance and insurgency and the funding ran dry.  The book provides a very personal and insightful window on the lives of ordinary Iraqis and a quite amazing cast of characters, who were in Iraq during that period.  Although the paper stopped publishing on September 15, 2003, there is a fascinating web archive here.

We were very lucky to have David Enders with us in addition to two members of the UM faculty, Paul Courant, professor of economics and former provost of the University  and Elizabeth Anderson, professor of philosophy and womens' studies,  to help frame our discussion of the book in break-out groups.   Both asked fascinating questions.   Courant was curious to know what well-intentioned Americans who went to Iraq out of principle and are there now really think of the situation on the ground and the prospects.  Anderson drew a remarkable parallel with the aftermath of the French revolution, as discussed in Simon Schama's Citizens.  Specifically, Robespierre early opposed the "liberation" of Belgium as a forceful extension of the Revolution, on the grounds that human beings universally resist invasion by "missionary armies."  Later,  when he himself came to power, however, Robespierre reversed his position, with tragic results.

All in all, the morning was an occasion for reflection on Baghdad Bulletin and on what obligations we have now  in Iraq both as a country and as individuals. 

Afterwards, the mood lightened considerably--with lunch in the Michigan League Ballroom and a performance by "RAs in Black"--Jo (jo) White (not in black) and his South Quad colleague RAs (who were in black).  The shtick set up the annual scavenger hunt, which was as wacky as ever.  We all met back in the Michigan League Ballroom for prizes and for book-signings.  A really wonderful day.


8/28/05  GONE FISHING!!!  I'm on leave the for the year, finishing one book (on what I call "The Second-Person Standpoint") and starting another one (on the history of ethics from the seventeenth-century on).  David Porter will be Acting Director during 2005-2006.  Read all about it here.   Have a great year!

4/3/05          Last week was a wonderful first Gleick-week, both the Lecture and Lunch With Honors.  This Wednesday at 4 pm in the Perlman Honors Commons, James Gleick will join me for a special Fresh Ideas.  The topic will be the Internet, about which Gleick has thought a lot, and which is centrally involved in his new book on information.  For example, here's a (relatively) recent article written for the New York Times Magazine, called "Get Out of My Namespace."  In the early 1990s, Gleick founded The Pipeline Network Inc., an innovative Manhattan-based online service that offered a direct connection to the Internet.  Its seamless, painless interface was complete with what may have been the first World Wide Web browser requiring only a modem.  You can read all about it in an interview with Gleick here  .  If you were able to catch Gleick's lecture or LWH last week, you already know what an amazingly interesting person he is.  Given his experiences, it will be especially fascinating to hear him on this topic.

3/26/05        Please forgive my dilatory post-surgery blogging.  The next  three weeks will be ending the year with a bang!  Not the big bang that Tim McKay was talking about at Saturday Morning Physics last week (and will continue next: check it out) , but the bang of the "boffo finish" that they used to talk about in what used to be called "show business."  But I digress.  For the next three weeks, the Honors Program will host the award-dinning author James Gleick.  I put Gleick's name in red because this is, if you will permit me, A VERY BIG DEAL.  First-year students will know Gleick as the author of Faster: the Acceleration of Just About Everything that they discussed at the beginning of the year at Honors Kickoff.  In addition, he has written a number of other highly acclaimed books, including  biographies of Isaac Newton  and Richard Feynman (the late brilliant quirky American physicist).  So everyone who can will want to get to Gleick's lecture on our changing understanding of the nature of time:

James Gleick De Roy Lecture    "Relatively Absolute (and Vice Versa)"
                                                            Wednesday, March 30, 4 pm
                                                            Angell Hall Auditorium C

You are also invited to:  Lunch With Honors with James Gleick Friday, April 1, noon, 1330 Mason Hall.

Gleick's next book will be on information, information theory, the history of information, etc.  Students who are taking the three-week mini-course, Honors 493  will be getting an advanced look.  Let me know if you are interested in the course.

3/13/05        I am slowly bouncing back from surgery on my broken wrist this past Tuesday.  I'm sorry not to be able to make Honors Roundtable last Wednesday, but we will be back with a group of first-year students this Wednesday at noon in South Quad.  The biggest drag about my wrist, at least initially, was not being able to type.  But now, no problem: I've discovered speech recognition software.  It is absolutely unbelievable.

We are getting fairly close to registration for next fall.  In the Honors Program hopes to have Fall Honors courses on the Web by this Friday.  Among the new courses for next fall are three courses resulting from our request to LSA faculty for new proposals:

    English 317     Lost connections: Irish, Black, and Jews a century ago   
    Professor George Bornstein

    History 302    U.S. Interventions in Latin America and the World
    Professor Richard Turits

    Economics 195    Applied Microeconomics
    Professor Steve Salant
I    

3/06/05        I hope everyone had a great break--I did, pretty literally.  I broke my wrist in a ridiculous running accident in California.  I'm a little hampered typing (one handed) for awhile, so I'll have to keep this short.  We'll have a Fresh Ideas this Thursday in the Perlman Honors Commons with Finding Voice, a student group that focusses on issues concerning student mental health.  I'll post more info later.

2/20/05      This is the last week before break, so we will be having something of a reduced schedule.  There will be no Honors Roundtable this week, since I'll be on my way to the west coast to give a couple of talks.  Monday will be a special edition of Fresh Ideas at 4 pm in the Perlman Honors Commons that will feature some ideas on empathy and respect that I will also be giving as a talk at Scripps College in California.  Y'all come!

2/14/05      Happy V-day!   We got the great news last week that Chris Hayward won a prestigious Churchill Scholarship to study physics at Cambridge University next year.  Couple with Jacob Bourjaily's Marshall Scholarship (also to study physics at Cambridge), this gives LSA Honors two winners of the most selective national scholarships for study in Britain.  Congratulations to Chris and Jacob!  

We had a great Honors Roundtable with Androni Henry's South Quad residents this last week.  This week's Roundtable will feature Professor Theresa Lee, a biopsychologist who is also head of the undergraduate program in Psychology.  Professor Lee's research concerns circadian rhythms and the fascinating effects of light on psychic and physiological phenomena.  

No Fresh Ideas this week, but next Monday, February 21, I'll do a special session at a special time.  I have been working up some ideas on the relation between respect, empathy, and sympathy, which span psychology and philosophy that I'd like to present and discuss.  So, next Monday, at 4 pm, in the Perlman Honors Commons:

Dr. D (that's me: Steve Darwall aka "that nothing is subliminal kid") will be in the house--the Doctor will be making a house call.  See a multi-media presentation that wowed them last May at the American Philosophical Association in Chicago (all right, "they" were all philosophers, and, ok, there were two media: voice plus video), under the title: "Respect and the Second-Person Standpoint" (check it out)  Watch the Doctor operate as he gives nuggets from his future Scripps College talk "Empathy, Respect, and the Second-Person Standpoint," a title that U Living, a web journal in Southern Calfornia, says "sound[s] esoteric and intimidating." (check it out).  Y'all come; you won't want to miss this!  Among other things: a video clip of Aretha Franklin singing "Think" from The Blues Brothers, which demonstrates the role of the "second-person standpoint" in respect.  

2/7/05        Two notable events this week:  On Tuesday, February 8, at noon, Associate Dean of Students, Stephanie Pinder-Amaker joins us for Lunch with Honors.  We'll have a wide-ranging coversation including mental health issues on campus and student life more generally.  Then on Thursday, February 10, at 4 pm in the Perlman Honors Commons there will be a combined HSSC/Fresh Ideas meeting with Siobhan Ehle and Shyla Kinahl of Teach for America.  Hope to see many of you at both events!

1/30/05     Sorry for missing last week.  I was out of the country giving some talks in England, one at the University of Bristol, and another at Oxford as part of a symposium on my book, Welfare and Rational Care.  Thanks to Donna Wessel Walker for sitting in for me in Fresh Ideas with John Carson when my plane to England got switched at the last minute.  I heard it went great.  Good stuff goin' on here last week also, including an Honors Student Steering Committee-organized meeting with Peace Corps representatives.

                This week we'll have Honors Roundtable as usual.  Big stuff next week.  On Tuesday, February 8, at noon, we'll have Associate Dean of Students, Stephanie Pinder-Amaker.  And Thursday, February 10, will be a combined HSSC and Fresh Ideas with Siobhan Ehle and Shyla Kinahl of Teach For America.

                I also want to bring to your attention three information sessions on the upcoming competitions for the Rhodes, Marshall, and Mitchell Scholarships.  These prestigious scholarships support postgraduate study in Great Britain.  LSA Honors students are frequenty among the Universities nominees, and this year Jacob Bourjaily won the Marshall to study physics at Cambridge University beginning next year.  We very much want to encourage you to think about applying for these and to talk with us about the process.  The UM application deadline for next year's competition is May 6, 2005, so it isn't too early to start thinking about this.  Informational meetings will be held:

• Thursday, February 3, 2005, 5pm Lurie Engineering Center, Johnson Rooms
• Tuesday, February 13, 2005, 5 pm, Student Activities Building, Maize and Blue Room
• Thursday, March 10, 2005, 5 pm, Michigan League, Third Floor, Room C
  

1/16/05     Our two Lunch with Honors were big hits last week as Sam Shalabi and DJ Spooky were in the house.  DJ Spooky drew an especially large crowd, which he kept enthralled with video and audio tracks (including a remix of Chuck D of Public Enemy) , fascinating observations, and gifts of CDs of his own mixes.  Sam Shalabi was also fascinating with, among other things, a track from his CD Osama that integrated, of all things, a tap dancer.  Both were very good stuff!

                This week we will have our first Honors Roundtable of the semester.  Some first-year students have been especially invited but everyone is welcome.

                We will also have the first Fresh Ideas of the semester on Thursday, January 20, at 4 pm in the Pelman Honors Commons.  Our guest will be Professor John Carson of our History Department.  Professor Carson is an expert on the social construction of intelligence and has just completed a book on intelligence tests and the history of their use in the US.  We are all of course familiar with the SAT and the ACT, but the history of these tests, their use by universities, and the meaning they have come to have in our society is incredibly interesting.  I suspect that all of us have views and ideas about these tests and their use.  I hope you will join us for what should be an extremely interesting discussion.  

1/9/05        Big doings this week: the two Lunch with Honors highlighted just below.  See you all there!

1/3/05        Happy New Year, Everyone!  We're going to be starting off the new year with a bang, or rather with two big bangs.  Next week we will have two quite amazingly creative young musician/artists with us for back-to-back Lunch with Honors on Wednesday and Thursday in the Honors Lounge, 1330 Mason Hall.  

• Wednesday, 1/12, Osama "Sam" Shalabi, who was born in Libya and is currently a central node in Montreal's vibrant underground music seen, will join us.  Shalabi is appearing in a University Musical Society concert Wednesday night: The Osama Project, which UMS describes as a kind of ‘concerto’ for oud and pre-recorded material,” which includes a musical collage involving narrative, text with various musical and non-musical layers, and oud. The basic theme of the performance is a projected story of an imaginary Arab and Jewish “dystopia,” a West Side Story projected into the future.   Honors students can get reduced tickets to this performance for $10 by contacting John Cantu.

• Thursday, 1/13,  we will have Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid.  (check him out at www.djspooky.com).  Spooky (Miller) is here for a UMS performance on Friday night of his remix of D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, titled, Rebirth of a Nation.  He is an extremely creative conceptual artist and one of the most popular and influential DJs on the New York circuit.  Madison Moore, an Honors student who is studying in Paris this year, says that  Spooky's CDs are at the front of every City Disc and FNAC store in Europe.  Clearly this guy bears a close look.  You can hear some of his stuff on his website (above), hear an NPR interview here (you can also check out a clip of Rebirth of a Nation there).  Again, Honors students can get reduced toickets to this performance for $10 by contacting John Cantu.

12/2           We have a big group signed up for tomorrow's Lunch with Honors with Amanda Gibson and Mike Danforth, Director and Producer, respectively, of NPR's Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me!  This is one of the funniest shows on the air, so it should be a lot of fun.

                Since registration is underway, I want to remind everyone of some of the wonderful Honors courses that are still open for Winter 2005.  Some of these were selected through a very competitive selection process last year.  They should be really terrific.  And another special course is James Gleick's 493 1-credit mini-course: "Information, from Smoke Signals to Bits and Bytes."  

• "Mapping Black Detroit: Race and Space in a Pre-Civil War American City."

            Professor Martha S. Jones, History
            HISTORY 302, section 002 - meets Tuesdays 3-6pm in G449 Mason Hall

This is on the one hand, a course that takes up major themes in African-American history­migration, urbanization, segregation, unrest­but, with a twist. Many students, as well as scholars, associate these themes with the 20th century African-American experience, while this course argues that these issues have their origins in the early decades of the 19th century. Also born in this antebellum urban environment were many of the institutions that continue to shape the lives of black Detroiters today; public schools, civil rights organizations, churches, fraternal order and political associations were established by the city's earliest African-American citizens. And this course asks what role these institutions played in the lives of black Michiganders who were making the transition from slavery to freedom.

• "Masses and Collectives: From Biblical Crowds to Smart Mobs"

            Professor Juli Highfill, Romance Languages
            ROMANCE LANGUAGES 250 section 001, meets Mon., Weds., 4-5:30 pm in B124 MLB

As its starting point, this interdisciplinary course will address the new global crowd that is emerging via internet and wireless telephony. This new form of collectivity, sometimes termed "smart mobs," is manifested in globally organized political demonstrations, in the spontaneous "flashmobs" organized by internet and cell phone, and in the new communities that are developing as dispersed individuals connect with others who share their interests and problems. After taking stock of this emerging global interconnectedness, we will look back at the history of crowds and discourses on collectivity.

• “The Evolution of Societies”

            Professor Ronald Inglehart, Political Science
            POLITICAL SCIENCE 389 section 003, meets Mondays 3-5pm in 2347 Mason Hall

We will not simply examine culture as a dependent variable. As economic and technological development gives humans greater control over their environment, people begin to escape from the reign of necessity and the range of human choice broadens. People become less narrowly constrained by economic scarcity and increasingly able to choose the world they will live in­and these choices are influenced by their cultural values. Although there are strong theoretical grounds for believing that cultural variables may influence given societies' economic growth rates, fertility rates or the survival of democratic institutions, cultural variables have largely been left out of quantitative analyses of these topics. One reason for this (apart from ideological controversies) is that, although abundant data are available for economic variables, reliable and cross-nationally comparable measures of cultural variables simply have not been available: in their absence, the relevant literature largely consisted of sweeping claims about the role of culture based on impressionistic measures.

• “Tales From the City: Narratives and Urban Life”

            Professor Janet Hart, Anthropology
            CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 258, section 001, meets Tuesdays 1-4 pm in G463 Mason Hall

Cities, with their complex concentrations of people and capital, generate many varieties of connections. In the realm of cultural practices and transformations, the stories that issue from the urban context are among the most revealing, about personal experience, collective history, community organization, and institutional constraint. Urban stories involve plots, protagonists, and background settings. One goal of the course I propose is to consider “the multiple ways in which we use narrative to formulate our ideas and experience of urban life" ”and “the stories heard and told in a particular town” (Finnegan, 1998) including academic theories, oral histories and a range of other renderings. The course would be based on previously taught graduate and undergraduate level urban anthropology courses, with the added feature of a focus on narrative as a way of organizing knowledge about the city.

• "Introduction to Roman Archaeology"

            Professor Susan Alcock
            CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY  222, sections 001, 003, meets  MWF 1-2pm and W 2-3pm

A millennium and a half after its collapse, the Roman Empire lives on in the popular imagination. No wonder: at its peak, Rome's empire was the largest the world had yet seen, spanning almost 3000 miles from West to East, with a population of 50 million inhabitants. Its capital was the world's first megacity, a sprawling home to a million people from all walks of life. From the movies we have visions of decadent emperors, fearless gladiators, and the teeming masses screaming for blood at the Colosseum. But what was life in ancient Rome really like? This course will move beyond the standard stereotypes and explore the history and culture of the city of Rome and its vast empire. Through the objects the Romans left behind, such as ruined temples, perfume bottles, imperial portraits, and soldiers' helmets, we can use art and archaeology to reconstruct the story of ancient Rome and the experiences of daily life in the Empire. Beginning with Rome's lowly origins as a small village we will trace its rise and eventual fall, traversing the empire from rainy Britain to the sands of the Sahara. Along the way we will explore such topics as politics and power, life in the army, religion, food and drink, entertainments, and the private life of its subjects. The readings and illustrated lectures will provide a broad overview, while weekly discussion sections will focus on specialized topics. There are no prerequisites for the course. Your grade will be based on two 1 hour-long exams, one final exam, and your section participation.

• "The Origins of Nazism"

            Professor Scott Spector
            HISTORY 322, sections 001, 014, Tuesday and Thursday 11:30am-1pm, Wednesday 1-2pm

This course explores the origins and the outcomes of the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in 1933. Because no single factor can explain why Germans consented to Nazi rule or why so few resisted Nazi persecution and genocide, we will take a multi-layered approach to this question, examining the relationships among and between political, cultural, social, and economic change. The first half of this course explores the vibrant culture and fractured politics of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), which was deeply marked by the first World War. Our study of Weimar captures the hope and optimism that underpinned its culture and politics, but also explores how and why the Nazis emerged from this very culture to assault and dismantle it. In the second half of the course we examine the ideologies and practices of the Nazi "racial state" and the forces that drove it into war and genocide. Students will examine the blurry lines between consent and dissent, complicity and resistance in the everyday lives of both perpetrators and victims of the regime. Finally, we will investigate the connections between racial persecution and the war of conquest launched by the Nazis in 1939.

• "Introduction to Women's Studies"

            Professor Dena Goodman
            WOMEN'S STUDIES 240, sections 001 and 012, Monday and Wednesday, 2-3pm, Wednesday 4-6pm

A survey introduction to women's studies which serves as a foundation for more advanced work. An interdisciplinary approach acquaints students with the broad dimensions of the field.
 
Finally, please note the 1-credit minicourse that James Gleick will give this spring as De Roy Visiting Professor

• HONORS 493, Section 005

            Tuesdays and Thursdays 3 to 5 pm, March 28-April 14
            "Information, from Smoke Signals to Bits and Bytes"

James Gleick, the much celebrated author will visit the LSA Honors Program from March 28 to April 15 and teach a 1 credit minicourse, which will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 5 pm.

This three-week minicourse will look at the consequences of a new idea: Information Theory, born c. 1948, at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. Students will explore the influence of Information Theory as piece of knowledge and as an intellectual program, with spreading connections to physics, art, computation, genetics, and psychology. Themes will be both contemporary and ancient: the embedding of this framework in the culture, wittingly and unwittingly, and the reconsideration of some historical ideas.

Likely topics include energy and entropy, the roots of computing in the 19th century divagations of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, and the path from smoke signals and talking drums to telegraphy and telephony. Readings will be nontechnical (at least, nonmathematical) and eclectic. One paper will be required on a narrowly focused topic of each student's choosing.

James Gleick is an author, reporter, and essayist. His latest book, Isaac Newton, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist this year and a national bestseller, as were Chaos: Making a New Science (Viking Penguin, 1987) and Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (Pantheon, 1992). His other books include Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (Pantheon, 1999) and What Just Happened: A Chronicle from the Electronic Frontier (Pantheon, 2002). They have been widely translated abroad.

11/28         I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, with a great Turkey dinner (or its vegetarian equivalent).  We are looking forward to a great couple of weeks leading up to the end of the semester.  This Wednesday at noon in South Quad, Professor John Carson, Honors Faculty Fellow and History Honors Concentration Advisor, will join us at Honors Roundtable.  All students with interests in History will want to join us.

                Next Monday, December 6 at noon in the Honors Lounge 1330 Mason Hall, we will have our final Lunch with Honors of the semester.  It will be blockbuster event.  Joining us will be the Director and Producer of NPR's fabulously popular weekend news/comedy show "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me!" (the "weekly 'Daily Show' of radio"): Amanda Gibson and Mike Danforth.  NPR provides fulsome bios as follows:

Amanda Gibson -- Director

Amanda Gibson rocketed out of Topeka, Kan. with the brains looks, and rampaging ambition that marked her as destined for the leadership of a Fortune 100 company, or perhaps a small South American nation. Instead, one day on a whim she called up a public radio program she happened to enjoy and asked if she could be an intern. Since then, she's rapidly risen up our very short ladder, becoming first an editorial assistant, then an associate producer and now, director. Strangely, the very same week she received this last inevitable promotion, United Airlines posted its largest loss ever and the people of Venezuela cried out, again, for a leader who can unite them in a renaissance of national greatness. Coincidence? Or destiny cruelly thwarted? You decide.

Mike Danforth -- Producer

Mike Danforth joined Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! in November of 2000, after a distinguished tenure at Prairie Home Companion in his home state of Minnesota. His first week was spent weeding through numerous hanging chad jokes to find the best ones. He also tutors the staff in Foley-like vocal sound effects. And does not look like Andy Dick. At all.

11/21        Tough loss to the Buckeyes, but we're going to the Rose Bowl anyway, baby!  My son, Will, was down about our going without really deserving it.  He agreed that the Football gods had decreed our Rose Bowl trip, but had a hollow feeling nonetheless.  I tried