I love university life

by | Aug 27, 2008 | Uncategorized

Seen not five minutes ago pelt­ing down the main path­way near the South Lawn: at least 25 men and three women, all wear­ing noth­ing but their shoes and socks, in the middle of Mel­bourne’s chilly winter. If this were yes­ter­day, they would have had a little...

Violence against women

by | Aug 25, 2008 | Uncategorized

I’m not going to recap the argu­ments right this second (in part because I’m still fin­ish­ing the read­ing and don’t have time; in part because I’ve taught domestic viol­ence as part of pre­vi­ous sub­jects and don’t feel I need to). I may do so later… I’m...

Cultural relativism and harmful cultural practices

by | Aug 18, 2008 | Uncategorized

Last week, at least a few of my stu­dents essen­tially argued that they didn’t believe there was any such thing as a uni­ver­sal human right. “Human rights are cul­tur­ally con­tin­gent,” said one.The ques­tion I think I want to ask today is about...

“How Rich Breeders Changed the World”

by | Aug 17, 2008 | Uncategorized

Ross Gittins is a great writer who I relied on extens­ively in high school to explain com­plex eco­nom­ics. His latest art­icle in the SMH is on a fas­cin­at­ing book by Gregory Clark, a pro­fessor of eco­nom­ics at the Uni­ver­sity of...