Category Archives: scholarship

A night at the Symposium: St. John’s College Post Graduate Research Symposium

Posted on August 10, 2014 by lawrence serewicz

On Thursday the 7th of August, I attended the Post Graduate Research Symposium at St. John’s College in Durham.  The Institute for Advanced Studies hosted the event and Dr. Mark Ogden chaired it. The event had 10 speakers over 2 … Continue reading →

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Snowden, Manning and Tsarnaev: is the only difference a pressure cooker?

Posted on December 26, 2013 by lawrence serewicz

If we answer this question with a tentative yes, we uncover a deeper problem for liberal democracy. Exasperated by politics, the political process, and society’s failure to change the political system, the three men[1] acted in their respective ways to … Continue reading →

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What is the university in an age of social media?

Posted on February 12, 2013 by lawrence serewicz

Clay Shirky has posted an intriguing article on the future of the university in the social media age.  He argues that social-media technology, in particular the MP3 and technology to enable sharing, which has changed the music industry, is changing … Continue reading →

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No time for history? Take a video tour of a County Record Office

Posted on October 18, 2012 by lawrence serewicz

  In a previous blog, on Jimmy Savile and the Shaw report  I mentioned the need to visit the County Record Office to know how our collective memory was stored.  For many people, this may prove difficult because of the … Continue reading →

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Penn State and the crisis of the American University.

Posted on August 16, 2012 by lawrence serewicz

The Penn State crisis reveals a deeper crisis than the Sandusky crimes where a sexual predator preyed on young boys.  The crisis is more than the cover up of the crimes described in the grand jury document and the Freeh … Continue reading →

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Why did I start blogging? Reflections after my 50th blog posts.

Posted on June 4, 2012 by lawrence serewicz

I finally made it to 50.  When I started blogging, I decided that once I reached 50 posts I would decide whether to continue or stop. Either I would not make it, through boredom, fear,  too much hard work or … Continue reading →

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What happens when we can longer find the moral arguments to defend democracy?

Posted on May 12, 2012 by lawrence serewicz

The following was developed in response to an exchange I had with Paul Bernal on his excellent blog about the UK government’s proposed surveillance powers.  In the discussion in previous class on the issue, a student from the former soviet … Continue reading →

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Some tentative thoughts on why the Occupy Wall Street Movement will fail to change America

Posted on October 16, 2011 by lawrence serewicz

What has struck me about reading the blogs and the tweets about the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States is thebelief that protests will lead to immediate and lasting political and social change.  I am not sure where … Continue reading →

Posted in Government, republicanism, scholarship, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments