Agendas Quote by Louis Menand

“For Peirce, inquiry is always communal—it is the median of many observations that gives the position of the star—and the last analysis really is…

— Louis Menand

If time is a staircase, reality is a Slinky. Decades can be parsed. Television, frequently accused of destabilizing life, is actually what stitches the…

— Louis Menand

Basically what you want in any profession - I would say the same thing if I were a lawyer or a doctor - is…

— Louis Menand

“In modern societies, the reproduction of custom is no longer understood to be one of the chief purposes of existence, and the ends of…

— Louis Menand

One of the functions of literary criticism, or reviewing, generally - and I, most of my reviews actually are not about literature - but…

— Louis Menand

You have to have students wanting to take the courses, otherwise you're not going, they're not going to be very effective.

— Louis Menand

“We do not (on Holmes’s reasoning) permit the free expression of ideas because some individual may have the right one. No individual alone can…

— Louis Menand

Literature is being taught as though it were only political medicine or political poison-a view that is not only illiberal but illiterate.

— Louis Menand

“[According to Holmes], ‘Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that…

— Louis Menand

It's difficult to get a job and people stay in school longer because they're employed as teaching assistants or instructors by their schools, by…

— Louis Menand

Just in higher education alone, more people go to college now, by enormous amounts, than went to college in the '50's and '60's. So…

— Louis Menand

Obviously input is helpful to faculty in trying to come up with a curriculum, but ultimately it's the faculty's job to know what students…

— Louis Menand