What does desire mean for Darwin and then for Freud? How do they understand the capacity to desire across species lines? and, What ethical quandaries result?

Though Shakespeare may not have invented parapraxes, he certainly exploited their psychological depths long before Freud. 

When I was younger, in college and grad school, I'd read that someone my current age had won the lottery, and it just seemed so pointless. What would they do with twenty years of money coming in that could possibly make their, or anyone's, life better?

Here we are in the 21st century and there is a new revolt in the former Soviet Space. Both Giorgi Maisuradze and Russian Punk Rock group Pussy Riot come from the former Soviet Empire.  They do not miss Lenin nor Stalin.

Errol Morris is famous for being an amazing interviewer. I think I know why, having seen him with Claude Lanzmann last Friday at Brandeis.

Thoughts on two very different recent films from Russia, Silent Souls (Овсянки, dir. Alexei Fedorchenko, 2010) and I Will Remember (Буду помнить, dir. Vitalii Votobyev, 2010).

For a long time I used to go to bed with a book by Freud.

The topic of our attachment to words is allegorical of our attachments to ourselves and to other persons.

Following up on my earlier post on Nantucket, as well as all the discussion here about Ngrams, I want to offer a few spontaneous speculations based on a new paper that's the talk of at least a couple of neighborhoods in the town.