R. J. Snell

On Not Knowing Nothing: Mastery and Expertise

May 17, 2013

I belong to a guild. As such, I’m recognized by its practitioners as a peer, a fellow, even, like them, a master. By this I do not mean anything remotely self-aggrandizing, not  suggesting I am an exemplar or even a…

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Interview about Education

May 16, 2013

You can find a short interview about education and my new book at Coffee and Markets here.…

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The Locale and Grace of Teaching

books May 6, 2013

I’ve not yet decided if I’ve succumbed to despair (a sin) or prudence, but I no longer participate in any of the forums at my campus about online education, MOOCs, virtual office hours, assessment, and the countless other distractions from…

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My New Book is Out–Authentic Cosmopolitanism

April 19, 2013

I’m pleased to announce that my new book, Authentic Cosmopolitanism: Love, Sin, and Grace in the Christian University, co-authored with Steve Cone, is now out.
From the back cover:
Humans are lovers, and yet a good deal of pedagogical theory,…

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A Prophet of Goodness: Review of Mark T. Mitchell’s The Politics of Gratitude: Scale, Place and Community in a Global Age

politics of gratitude April 16, 2013

At my worst moments, I succumb to thinking that we have become utterly trite, absorbed by ephemera, thin of character, quick but scattered of intellect, weak of will, and just at a moment in which we face gravely serious issues.…

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The Mouse with Tusks: Speech, Power, Perversity

Lab Mouse March 15, 2013

Earlier this week, Terry Gross interviewed Emily Anthes, author of Frankenstein’s Cat: Cuddling up to Biotech’s Brave New Beasts, on recent development in bioengineering, including radio controlled insects, pigs which grow human organs, goats with medicated milk, and mice doing…

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Lives Lived Worthily: On Hunting

pheasant February 19, 2013

A little over a year ago, after hearing my bitter protests about another pathetic talk by some expert on education whose vision of life I find basically revolting but whose blather I am contractually obligated to attend for my own…

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Modesty’s Retreat

Banff, Alberta January 14, 2013

Over a drink with a fellow Canadian ex-pat about a month ago, I rather wistfully (and irresponsibly) indulged in some wishful thinking as I expressed my longing for the solid values of “peace, order, and good government” which had formed…

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Adam and Eve on the Porch: The Place of Majestic Man

Michelangelo detail, Creation of Adam November 13, 2012

Lately I’ve had the privilege of working through The Lonely Man of Faith (1965) by Joseph Soloveitchik (1903-1993), an influential Orthodox rabbi with deep ties to Yeshiva University and a series of secondary schools in New England and the New…

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Tories are Persons, and Persons are Tories (but so too is Labour)

Maurice-Glasman-007 July 16, 2012

All too many weeks ago, I promised a series of posts on foundations for a new religious right . . .  and then I promptly, and happily, disappeared into the woods. Having reappeared, rested and fished out, I continue the…

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Thoughts towards a New Religious Right

prayer May 21, 2012

Given my background, beliefs, and practices, I should be an enthusiastic supporter of the religious right—but I can’t do it. I’m religious. I’m conservative. I conclude with the religious right on a good many things, and yet. . . .…

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Childhood without a Harness

children May 4, 2012

Just a few days back, I arrived home to find a mound of muddy clothes …at my front entrance and the sounds of children scampering from bath to bedroom (all of which meant, of course, mud downstairs, water upstairs, cleaning

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Frat Boys and the Household

Dartmouth_Sigma_Alpha_Epsilon April 3, 2012

If you follow college “culture” at all, you’ll find little new or surprising… in the recent discussions of the abusive hazing rituals at Dartmouth, or that the college and its alumni so cheerfully abandon any pretense of caring. Or that

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Impiety and Enforced Forgetfulness

Bruton parish March 26, 2012

I’m struck at the vanity of those impious folks infatuated with their ability to improve the situation… without having first served a long apprenticeship under the tutelage of the old. Proudly ignorant—they believe freedom from apprenticeship guarantees spontaneity, relevance, creativity—they

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Take-out Death Eaters

syringe March 2, 2012

Well, if drive-through Ash Wednesday services weren’t enough,… the Dutch have finally invented mobile euthanasia units to do house calls when your own doctor won’t. A town in Wisconsin I once lived in had drive-through liquor stores, but that seems

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Call an Assembly: The First Duty

Renoir_Oignons February 23, 2012

In The Supper of the Lamb, a delightfully odd book, Robert Farrar Capon suggests as an exercise in reality an extended session with an onion. “Once you are seated,” he suggests, “the first order of business is to address yourself…

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