Beauty all too often masks power, say some, and beauty unfairly objectifies the body (usually female), say others. Scarry has noted that for a couple of decades now, professors have been avoiding any talk of beauty. Though her book is brief, the studied awkwardness of Scarry’s style makes it seem long and serves perhaps as a signal that these ruminations are for the happy few-which is too bad, because what she has to say is both interesting and original. Scarry (English/Harvard) delivered these thoughts on beauty as the Tanner Lectures of 1998 at Yale and then retired to a research institute to work them up for publication. An essay that aims to recover beauty as a serious topic for academic discourse and, more ambitiously, to reconnect beauty with truth and justice.
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Historically, a very basic question: on page 7 of The Black Swan, you mention the 1975 Lebanese Civil War as having been a black swan of sorts. Just to be clear, as always, this is the conversation with Nassim Nicholas Taleb I want to have, not the one that you want to have. First, he and I will converse, and then he will talk with Bryan Caplan. Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been gracious enough to agree to this dual event. I’m reminded of the words of the Hall of Famer Ernie Banks from Chicago, who used to always say, “Let’s play two,” when there was the possibility of a doubleheader. ĬOWEN: We’re very honored today to have with us the great Nassim Nicholas Taleb. If you notice an error, please send us an email. This transcript has been edited for clarity. Keep reading to your child until he’s a teenager. Here are some tips from The Read-Aloud Handbook that you can start using immediately: The rich vocabulary found in children’s books helps children when it comes to school readiness. Any word beyond those words is considered “rare.” Children’s books provide 30.9 rare words per thousand, versus nine rare words per thousand found in conversation of an adult talking to a 3-year-old, or 17.3 rare words per thousand found in adult conversation. Researchers developed a common lexicon consisting of the 10,000 words we use most often. You intuitively know that reading aloud is good for your kids, but Trelease lays out such compelling, well-researched reasons to read to your kids that you’ll soon find it impossible to say no to one more story.Ĭhildren’s books are an excellent source of new vocabulary. “It’s not the toys in the house that make the difference in children’s lives it’s the words in their heads,” says Jim Trelease in The Read-Aloud Handbook. |