Truth inextricably linked to power

It's our last week together; sounds like as good a time as any to explain the title of my column, eh?

"The Politics of Truth" is a term used by philosopher and historian Michel Foucault to describe his investigation of how declarations of "truth" are inextricably tied up in ...

Progressive Christians must break silence

Not all Christians are fundamentalists — though you'd be hard pressed to prove it sometimes.

Let me begin by saying it is hard to determine exactly what the Bible says, because reading anything requires subjective interpretation. A person has to either read aloud or write down a passage of scripture ...

Make most of college opportunities

Why are you here?

Perhaps it's because I just recently realized I'm graduating in a little over a month's time, but I've been trying to think holistically about my experience here over the past four years: what's worked, what hasn't, where I've made ...

American underclass deserves attention

Joe Bageant died a little more than a week ago at the age of 64, four months after being diagnosed with cancer. The world is poorer for it.

Bageant was a Vietnam vet turned anti-war hippie turned journalist turned defender of the American underclass. His most famous book, "Deer Hunting ...

Education should foster practicality

I have a challenge for you: Aim to make your education practical, not profitable.

I should probably begin by making clear that which I am not urging. I am not arguing that you shouldn't make money after you graduate. If you get a job that offers you a six-figure ...

People considered more than their ideas

Bodies matter.

I'd like you to think about your university experience so far — all the classes you've taken (or haven't), the books you've read (or haven't), the friends you've made (or haven't). What have you studied? What fields have you left unexamined? How ...

Asking tough questions not heretical

Heresiology, meet Twitter.

Heaven was the problem — or, perhaps more specifically, the matter of who gets to go there. For those readers who do not follow this stuff as obsessively as I do, emergent church pastor and author Rob Bell got himself into some trouble this past week over what ...

Realism should not define way of thinking

You will gain nothing if you never risk anything.

I think it's time for us to give up the pretensions of realism — you know, the attitude with which folks respond, "That's just not realistic" to any idea that happens to challenge the status quo a bit too much ...

Dependency on one another positive

Dependency isn't bad. It's called relationship.

I've always been dismayed at the discourse of independence circulating in our mostly American, mostly capitalist society. I'm unsure as to which of these entities is more responsible for this attitude — that being dependent on someone is negative and that ...

Valentine’s Day teaches nature of love

Deconstruct Valentine's Day.

Yes, you read that correctly. For all our sakes, someone please sic the ghost of Derrida on this crazy Hallmark holiday, with all its chocolate, expensive dinners and rom-coms, and not to mention the overwhelming glut of flowers and frilly hearts. Maybe then we can see ...

Real identities foster real relationships

I have to be fully me and you have to be fully you in order for us to be in relationship with one another. I + I = We.

I'll admit from the outset that this maxim, which serves as the inspiration for everything that is to follow, is in no ...

Critical thinking imperative to beliefs

What you believe matters.

I think many, if not most of us, live under the delusion that our opinions exist in a vacuum — that they come into being out of nowhere and that, by and large, they don't affect other people unless we personally act upon them. This is ...

Good questions lead to better conversation

What you leave out could reveal far more than what you include.

Whether in a history paper, a lab report or a late-night political discussion with a roommate, most of us, as students, are forced to make choices between what makes the cut and what doesn’t in terms of ...