CAA News Today

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Almanac of Higher Education 2014

The Chronicle’s twenty-seventh annual collection of data on colleges answers perennial questions like how much faculty make and which colleges are growing the fastest. This year’s almanac also gives you new ways to compare institutions. Which colleges have the most students enrolled in online courses? Which have the highest percentages of nonresident aliens? Browse the charts and tables in these sections to find out. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Starting Over, Part 1

First, congratulations. You got a job, which isn’t easy to do these days. I know you’re probably very stressed out right now. I’ve felt that way four times. I have written elsewhere of my academic employment history, but suffice it to say, yes: four tenure-track jobs, four cross-country moves, four universities, four times I’ve started from scratch. So, here’s my hard-earned advice about adjusting to a new place, managing your expectations, and getting what you really want. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Starting Over, Part 2

In the first part of this essay on tips for professors on starting over at a new college, I offered advice on seeking mentors, changing your thinking from your grad school days, and “thinking like a lawyer.” Here’s my second batch of hard-earned advice (from my multiple job changes) about adjusting to a new place, managing your expectations, and getting what you really want. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

How to Write an Honest but Collegial Book Review

I have agreed to write a book review, and I’m frankly not sure how to proceed. My advisor, who invited me to write it, is not a fan of this particular author and will expect a critical review. But the author, as someone who works in my area, is a possible contact/future colleague, and I don’t want to alienate him by writing a scathing review. Is there some formula to follow for writing book reviews? Do you have any tips for writing a critical review that doesn’t shred the book? (Read more from Vitae.)

Beyond the Relic Cult of Art

I am nostalgic for a time before the modern concept of art forgery had gelled, when it was possible to imagine many ways for artworks to exist out of their time. I love the culture of Renaissance art because it was not settled in its categories, and produced art out of that unsettlement. It knew forgery, but it wrinkled time in other ways as well. (Read more from the Brooklyn Rail.)

Digitizing Warhol’s Film Trove to Save It

Andy Warhol wrote lovingly of his ever-present tape recorder. But for almost a decade beginning in the 1960s, his real boon companions seemed to be his 16mm film cameras, which he used to record hundreds of reels, many of which are still little known even among scholars because of the fragility of the film and the scarcity of projectors to show them on. Now the Warhol Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, which holds the artist’s film archives, are beginning a project to digitize the materials. (Read more from the New York Times.)

Rethinking My Cell Phone/Computer Policy

My banning of cell phones and laptops, particularly the way I articulate it as a “ban” in my policies, suddenly seemed inconsistent with my own philosophies. And yet, I still don’t want students habitually using their phones or computers in class, unless we are in the midst of an activity—such as database research—that is obviously facilitated by their computers. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Camera Phones Stoke Fears That Technology Is Leaving Us Incapable of Deep Engagement with Anything

How long do you need to look at a painting to really appreciate it? There are many answers to this question. As long as you like, is one. Longer than you think, is another. The art historian James Elkins wrote that it took him about 100 hours, over three years, to learn to really see a Mondrian painting. He recounts meeting a woman who had spent an hour looking at the same Rembrandt work four times a week for at least two decades—or about 3,000 hours. (Read more from the Independent.)