Noteworthy reads from the last week:
“When a book is published by MIT Press and comes with a list of quotes from people like Clay Shirky and Ethan Zuckerman you can be assured that its content will be free of heresies against the teachings of utopian social media populism.”
“Shakespeare in Modern English?,” James Shapiro
“I’ve had a chance to look over a prototype translation ‘Timon of Athens’ that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has been sharing at workshops and readings for the past five years. While the work of an accomplished playwright, it is a hodgepodge, neither Elizabethan nor contemporary, and makes for dismal reading.”
“Uncovering The Secret History Of Myers-Briggs,” Merve Emre
“Less obvious at first, and then wholly undeniable, is how hard the present-day guardians of the type indicator work to shield Myers's personal and professional history from critical scrutiny. For the foundation, as well as for its for-profit-research-arm, the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT), this means keeping journalists far away from Myers's notebooks, correspondences and research materials, which are stored in the Special Collections division of the University of Florida library.”
“Subjectivity is not employed as a disclaimer, a way of implying a subheading that reads, ‘But really, I don’t know.’ To the contrary. More often than not, the role of the subjective is as a bulwark to objections or alternate interpretations.”
“What Is the Anthropocene?,” Timothy Shenk and Jedediah Purdy
“This huge increase in human impact I would call the Anthropocene Condition. This is separate from what I call the Anthropocene Insight, which is owning that, in a deep way, nature has never been separate from culture and politics.”
“Racial Profiling Via Nextdoor.com,” Sam Levin
“On Nextdoor, people give away free furniture or fruit from their backyards. Users reunite lost dogs with their owners. Members organize community meetings and share tips about babysitters and plumbers. But under the ‘Crime and Safety’ section of the site, the tone is much less neighborly.”