Jennifer Howard

What does our email say about how we spend our days? Last December, the Cambridge classicist Mary Beard, who blogs for TLS, posted a recap of a day’s worth of email from her inbox. The summary gives you a sense of what Beard called “a Don’s (real) life” and what she’s asked to think about over the course of a more or less regular day. Now it may or may not be interesting to read somebody else’s email. Doubtless you have plenty of your own to get through. But as Dan Cohen said when we were discussing it on Twitter,… Read more...

This is the sixth post in a conversation that Mark Athitakis and I have been having on our blogs about Henry Adams’ 1880 novel, “Democracy.” See Mark’s previous post, “Media Circuses and New Monuments,” here. Mark, I take some comfort from your comment that Adams does have a soft spot for the city and just has to cross the river (or go for a canter along Rock Creek) to find it. I say “some comfort,” because by the end of the book, it feels like he can’t wait to put Washington behind him. You can sense Adams’ relief as well… Read more...