Nº. 1 of  15

Shimeriana

This account posts interesting content related to Shimer College, the Great Books College of Chicago.

META: Phasing out this blog in favor of shimerians.tumblr

Dearest all,

Thanks for all of your follows, reblogs, likes, etc. You rock.

Announcements:

1. Effective more or less immediately, this blog (shimeriana) will be retired in favor of shimerians.tumblr.com.

Reason: this “shimeriana” tumblr was set up before I had familiarized myself with Tumblr’s intricacies.  As a result, I set it up as a personal blog rather than the community blog I had intended.  A year or two having passed, it seems like it’s about time to rectify this mistake … especially since it’s high time we did something about shimerians.com.  Therefore:

2. On or around June 15, hosting for shimerians.tumblr will be moved to the custom domain shimerians.com.  The content currently on shimerians.com will remain accessible for the foreseeable future (but hidden from search engines), at the subdomain old.shimerians.com. 

Reason: The existing site shimerians.com was set up with high hopes that it could serve as a general hub for Shimer-related action and discussion, but it never lived up to the hype.  Further, the administrative headaches of a full-featured Drupal site were more than yrz trly was really interested in (or capable of) dealing with over the long haul. Worse, spam and crawl-redundancy issues have made the existing site, regrettably, more of a liability to the Shimer conversation than an asset.

Adam Kotsko:

This fall, I’m scheduled to teach one course, Social Sciences I (and audit a course for training purposes).

When we’re in grad school, there’s this pressure to somehow know everything already or at least appear to — but there’s no substitute for just steadily reading over the course of your life, adding new books to your repertoire and returning to old ones. It seems so obvious when I say it, but it’s only in the last couple years that I was able to step outside the grad student “panic mode” and reflect on the magnitude of having an entire life to study this stuff.

This week at Growing Power has been a crazy one, but as I was forewarned, every week is crazy on the farm. A hectic schedule can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. Whenever I start to feel the pressure, I always remind myself of middle school math. As I first learned a new formula, I always struggled through the exercises. I didn’t think I would ever understand the process. But as one day folded into another, another formula was presented and to my ever-renewing surprise, I understood the past day’s work as it built upon the present. The same can be said for most every new task I learn as Growing Power.

philosophystories:

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher who made a profound impact on the European continent. To this day he remains a key Western philosopher in continental philosophy. An eccentric and original writer, his works of philosophy can also be seen as remarkable pieces of…

Shimer has been quite the roller coaster ride since then, the best of my life, in fact.

Brad, fourth year student.

    Before coming to Shimer, my career plans bounced around frequently: at some point I have wanted to be everything from a computer technician to a tattoo artist to a journalist.  However, one of the things I have gotten out of Shimer has been somewhat of a cementing of my career ambitions, or at least of what degree I will be obtaining in grad school.  I have more or less decided I will be getting a Masters of Library Science degree, but I am still switching between wishing to be an archivist, or some breed of librarian.  The internship I’ve secured is aimed to help me decide between the two by giving me  real-world experience in both.

philosophystories:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) was a Genevan philosopher who declared that: ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ His writings made a real influence on the political thought of the day, despite their extreme divergence from contemporary European politics in the 18th century. His…

The value of life is not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them; a man may live long yet very little.

Montaigne (via 2012happiness)

stoicmike:

“The nature of the universe delights not in anything so much as to alter all things, and present them under another form.”- Marcus Aurelius. This is the only photo I’ve managed to get of a bubble breaking.

stoicmike:

“The nature of the universe delights not in anything so much as to alter all things, and present them under another form.”- Marcus Aurelius. This is the only photo I’ve managed to get of a bubble breaking.

stickyembraces:

Speaking of Hegel, allow me to repost a picture I made ages ago

stickyembraces:

Speaking of Hegel, allow me to repost a picture I made ages ago

strange thought:

thisnewscandal:

has anyone ever noticed we typify cats as being intelligent, and dogs as being dumb, even though dogs are more likely to learn instructions and follow rules and commands? it feels like a sign of how much Western societies value autonomy, even when the decision-making entity is making decisions that may be contrary to what we want.

or maybe Shimer has just screwed my brain. who knows? my cat doesn’t even match the typification.

Nº. 1 of  15