Word: performative
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This phenomenon is hardly unique to me. It has become an epidemic among our generation. Rather than vainly lamenting the trend, it is more pragmatic to analyze it. The most useful critical exercise we can perform is to examine candidly why people stop reading a book rather than focusing on why people start reading books. Usually someone does not stop reading a novel for a sharply-defined ideological reason, but rather because the book failed to engage them. Is it possible sometimes the book is to blame and not the reader? Countless thinkers have offered explanations for this problem...
...functions more as a nod to the logical bent of Conan Doyle’s series than as a serious portrayal of it. From impossibly large explosions whose implausibility is exceeded only by the number of proximal characters who manage to survive them, to magical African flowers which perform convenient plot functions, this is not a film showcasing mind over matter. On occasion, we witness Holmes’s renowned analytical capabilities, but rarely are these moments integral to the story. Holmes uses his intellect not so much to outwit the villains as to discover their next target, whereupon conflicts...
...concept of a bluegrass symposium at Harvard emerged years ago. Brown expressed interest in coming back to the college to perform after playing in a concert for President Drew Faust’s inauguration in 2007. O’Connor had dreamed of organizing an event of bluegrass music since he founded HCAMA with banjo player Clayton D. Miller ’10 that same year. “We built on jam sessions and thought we should try to represent the style of indigenous music on campus more,” O’Connor says...
...Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club. “One of the beauties of HRDC is that you don’t have to be a Dramatic Arts concentrator. That’s one of the reasons why I came to Harvard as opposed to a drama school. Here, anyone can perform and also pursue their other passions. I’m also potentially concerned about the graduate school because the resources that we have might go there for those concentrators who will need to do it for credit...
...Joint Chiefs of Staff want the ability to destroy an enemy's computer network "so badly that it cannot perform any function," according to the handbook on what the Pentagon calls "Information Operations." The U.S. military wants to keep foes "from accessing and using critical information, systems and services" and to spoof adversaries "by manipulating their perception of reality." Just how such wizardry is to be accomplished is contained in a classified supplement. But hints can be gleaned in a trickle of contracts and budget documents, larded with geek-speak, that have begun seeping onto the public record. (See pictures...