Tag Archives: Power

The Seductive Lure of Power

Monday Pundits are puzzled why respectable people yield to the lure of Donald Trump and join his administration, even though they invariably emerge tainted. I don’t have in mind those grifters like campaign chair Paul Manafort, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price, or EPA’s Scott Pruitt, who were corrupt […]

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Jane Austen, Mistress of Manipulation

A new political science text shows that Jane Austen has a shrewd understanding of game theory.

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How Life Looks When One Is Property

Last week we had another fine presentation in the series of Twain lectures that my colleague Ben Click has been running. Once again a talk about race and Huckleberry Finn deepened my respect for that magnificent book. Here are some of the ideas I picked up, which I share with you from memory since I didn’t […]

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Beowulf (the film): Fathering Monsters

Jolie as Grendel’s Mother  Film Friday I’m teaching Beowulf at the moment and of course my class wants to know what I think of the movie, by which they mean Robert Zemeckis’s animated 2007 version rather than the 2005 Swedish film Beowulf and Grendel. Neither is very good but it’s interesting to see what each […]

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