I was just reminded by Kathy Geier on FB and Twitter that when she was a student at Hunter College in the early 1990s, she took a comparative literature course with Philip Roth. According to Kathy, Roth had no TAs, designed the course himself, graded all the papers (and there was a lot of writing), and was paid reasonably. The last point was confirmed by Ken Sherrill, whose memory of Lillian Hellmann teaching at CUNY I spoke about here. About all of which Scott Lemieux said: What I find really strange about this is that he [Roth] apparently put together a syllabus for a course without at least 3 grad students to help him; almost as if he was an […]

I wrote a longer piece on Alexander Cockburn for Al Jazeera. Here are some other reminiscences, remembrances, and reflections: One of the most thoughtful and comprehensive assessments from Kathy Geier, who also includes some great links. Dennis Perrin on, among other things, Cockburn’s darker side. I linked to this in my earlier piece, but here again is Jeffrey St. Clair, Cockburn’s comrade and writing partner. More on Hitchens versus Cockburn from Jeff Sparrow. An interesting appreciation from National Review‘s John Fund, who had once been Cockburn’s editor at the Wall Street Journal. And another appreciation from the right: libertarian Jesse Walker. Some tweets from his niece actress Olivia Wilde: “He taught me how to make coffee in a jar, how […]