Alissa Wilkinson

I teach humanities and writing at The King's College in New York City, co-edit Comment, and write.

Recent Tweets @alissamarie

ayjay:

Having received some interesting feedback on my previous post about academic life, I’m going to say a few more things about academic time-management, in a things-I-have-learned-in-a-long-life sort of way:

1) I know this is obvious, but I have to say it: you’re never going to write much if you…

Useful advice for writers and teachers, but especially those who do both.

I think I want some of these, pronto, for my office. Via explore-blog:

Gorgeous vintage posters from the golden age of travel, now available as prints.

[Read] aloud — always the best single piece of writing advice — and [choose] the version that best suits the context, your style and your ear.
The New York Times’ Ben Yagodaon mastering the art of the comma – a fine addition to our ongoing archive of writing advice. (via explore-blog)

(via explore-blog)

Among the brand-name French theorists of the mid-20th century, Roland Barthes was the fun one. (Foucault was the tough one, Derrida was the dreamy one, Lacan was the mysterious one — I like to imagine them sometimes as a black-turtlenecked, clove-smoking boy band called Hors de Texte, with the hit album “Discipline ’n’ Punish.”)
Sam Anderson, opening his NYT Mag riff on Mythologies with quite possibly the greatest lede of all time.

(via millionsmillions)

I’ll be presenting a plenary paper on Kieslowski’s Three Colors Trilogy at this conference, and other far more intelligent folk than I are presenting papers too, and also, it is in Paris, so how could you go wrong?

I was asked to participate in the “Science in Focus” series at Books & Culture for the month of May, which focuses on the short-lived show Terra Nova. Here I write mostly about a future without religion, and some other stuff, like dinosaurs.

Fun with juicing!! (Taken with instagram)

A quick TEDx talk from Todd Henry (Accidental Creative) on the practices that people who work with ideas and make things need in order to be brilliant at a moment’s notice. Simple, but quite good, and well worth a watch.

To Patheos! Awesome, guys. I’m delighted.

The Master (by AlRosePromotions) - Joaquin Phoenix! First clip from P.T. Anderson’s upcoming film! Guys! GUYS!!!!

Aha. Good working music.

3. Don’t write for yourself alone. This is not just about you. You are working to translate suffering to the shared page. Buechner reminds us of the universality we should be striving for: “…all our stories are in the end one story, one vast story about being human, being together, being here. Does the story point beyond itself? Does it mean something? What is the truth of this interminable, sprawling story we all of us share? Either life is holy with meaning, or life doesn’t mean a damn thing.