Quack this Way

Quack this Way

Author: Bryan A. Garner

Publisher: Penrose Pub

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 9780979606038

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Two friends, both of them vocational snoots, sat down to film an interview in February 2006. Their subjects: language and writing. The interviewee drove more than an hour, from Claremont to downtown Los Angeles. The interviewer flew from Dallas. They spoke on film for 67 minutes and then walked uphill to a nearby seafood restaurant, where they continued the running conversation they had started five years earlier. They liked each other, and they seemed to understand each other. The rest is history. This is the last long interview with David Foster Wallace.


Self-Improvement

Self-Improvement

Author: Robert N. Johnson

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2011-10-06

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 0191618969

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Is there any moral obligation to improve oneself, to foster and develop various capacities in oneself? From a broadly Kantian point of view, Self-Improvement defends the view that there is such an obligation and that it is an obligation that each person owes to him or herself. The defence addresses a range of arguments philosophers have mobilized against this idea, including the argument that it is impossible to owe anything to yourself, and the view that an obligation to improve onself is overly 'moralistic'. Robert N. Johnson argues against Kantian universalization arguments for the duty of self-improvement, as well as arguments that bottom out in a supposed value humanity has. At the same time, he defends a position based on the notion that self- and other-respecting agents would, under the right circumstances, accept the principle of self-improvement and would leave it up to each to be the person to whom this duty is owed.


Tell Me How It Ends

Tell Me How It Ends

Author: Valeria Luiselli

Publisher: Coffee House Press

Published: 2017-03-13

Total Pages: 71

ISBN-13: 1566894964

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"Part treatise, part memoir, part call to action, Tell Me How It Ends inspires not through a stiff stance of authority, but with the curiosity and humility Luiselli has long since established." —Annalia Luna, Brazos Bookstore "Valeria Luiselli's extended essay on her volunteer work translating for child immigrants confronts with compassion and honesty the problem of the North American refugee crisis. It's a rare thing: a book everyone should read." —Stephen Sparks, Point Reyes Books "Tell Me How It Ends evokes empathy as it educates. It is a vital contribution to the body of post-Trump work being published in early 2017." —Katharine Solheim, Unabridged Books "While this essay is brilliant for exactly what it depicts, it helps open larger questions, which we're ever more on the precipice of now, of where all of this will go, how all of this might end. Is this a story, or is this beyond a story? Valeria Luiselli is one of those brave and eloquent enough to help us see." —Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company "Appealing to the language of the United States' fraught immigration policy, Luiselli exposes the cracks in this foundation. Herself an immigrant, she highlights the human cost of its brokenness, as well as the hope that it (rather than walls) might be rebuilt." —Brad Johnson, Diesel Bookstore "The bureaucratic labyrinth of immigration, the dangers of searching for a better life, all of this and more is contained in this brief and profound work. Tell Me How It Ends is not just relevant, it's essential." —Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore "Humane yet often horrifying, Tell Me How It Ends offers a compelling, intimate look at a continuing crisis—and its ongoing cost in an age of increasing urgency." —Jeremy Garber, Powell's Books


The Scent of Time

The Scent of Time

Author: Byung-Chul Han

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-09-25

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 1509516085

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In his philosophical reflections on the art of lingering, acclaimed cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han argues that the value we attach today to the vita activa is producing a crisis in our sense of time. Our attachment to the vita activa creates an imperative to work which degrades the human being into a labouring animal, an animal laborans. At the same time, the hyperactivity which characterizes our daily routines robs human beings of the capacity to linger and the faculty of contemplation. It therefore becomes impossible to experience time as fulfilling. Drawing on a range of thinkers including Heidegger, Nietzsche and Arendt, Han argues that we can overcome this temporal crisis only by revitalizing the vita contemplativa and relearning the art of lingering. For what distinguishes humans from other animals is the capacity for reflection and contemplation, and when life regains this capacity, this art of lingering, it gains in time and space, in duration and vastness.


Integrating Timing Considerations to Improve Testing Practices

Integrating Timing Considerations to Improve Testing Practices

Author: Melissa J. Margolis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-06-03

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1351064770

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Integrating Timing Considerations to Improve Testing Practices synthesizes a wealth of theory and research on time issues in assessment into actionable advice for test development, administration, and scoring. One of the major advantages of computer-based testing is the capability to passively record test-taking metadata—including how examinees use time and how time affects testing outcomes. This has opened many questions for testing administrators. Is there a trade-off between speed and accuracy in test taking? What considerations should influence equitable decisions about extended-time accommodations? How can test administrators use timing data to balance the costs and resulting validity of tests administered at commercial testing centers? In this comprehensive volume, experts in the field discuss the impact of timing considerations, constraints, and policies on valid score interpretations; administrative accommodations, test construction, and examinees’ experiences and behaviors; and how to implement the findings into practice. These 12 chapters provide invaluable resources for testing professionals to better understand the inextricable links between effective time allocation and the purposes of high-stakes testing. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.