This is an archived page. Images and links on this page may not work. Please visit the main page for the latest updates.

 
 
 
Read my book, TEACHING BEAUTY IN DeLILLO, WOOLF, AND MERRILL (Palgrave Macmillan; forthcoming), co-authored with Jennifer Green-Lewis. VISIT MY BRANCH CAMPUS AT INSIDE HIGHER ED





UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
"Except for University Diaries, most academic blogs are tedious."
(Rate Your Students)
"I think of Soltan as the Maureen Dowd of the blogosphere,
except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Squalor at the Sorbonne

French students, many of whom share the national penchant for industrial violence, are currently trashing the Sorbonne. A philosophy student from Gabon puts it well: They have "taken the Sorbonne hostage for their cause."

Their cause is the expression of outrage over modest proposed changes in employment law that actually might make them susceptible to firing if they don't perform well. Because employers don't like the ridiculously restrictive French employment laws, they tend to avoid hiring people. The unemployment rate among young people in France is approaching 25%.
Posted at: 3/11/2006 06:33:00 AM