Alan Robbins' "The Dire Image"

Post your responses in the comments.

Robin Landa's "Speaking Brand"

Post your responses in the comments.

James Twitchell's "Trash and the Voluntary Simplicity Movement"

Post your responses in the comments.

Marie D. Smith's "Decoding Victoria's Secret"

Post your responses in the comments.

Read Mercer Schuchardt's "The Perfect Icon for an Imperfect Post-Literate World"

Post your responses in the comments.

Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Post your responses in the comments.

Daniel Goleman's "Equation For Beauty Emerges In Studies"

Post your responses in the comments.

George Saunders' "The Braindead Megaphone"

Post your responses in the comments.

Annie Dillard's "Seeing"

Post your responses in the comments.

George Givens' "The Non-Verbal Dictionary"

Post your responses in the comments.

Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator

Post your responses in the comments. Since this isn't a proper "reading," feel free to comment on this experience in any number of ways including (but not limited to):

• Whether this diagnosis seems "correct"
• Where you might have seen your personality profile manifesting itself in your life
• Which of the components of the personality type make the most sense to you

• Mark Anthony Neal: Introduction from Looking for Leroy

Please post your responses to Neal's Introduction to Looking for Leroy here. You're free to respond in any way that makes sense to you, but, if you're stuck, you might consider:

• What Neal means by "legibility"
• How Neal uses contemporary examples to make sense of this complex issue
• Whether or not Neal is "on track" with his thesis
• Whether or not we've moved past issues of racial profiling/judgment as a society

Post your responses as comments to this post. If you like, you're free to respond to the responses of other students, so long as the are very close to 250 words or more. If I were you, I'd compose my response in a word processing program and then copy & paste it into the comments box so as not to lose your comment if you press the "back" button.

Ann Powers: "When Pop Stars Flirt With Danger"

Please post your responses to Ann Powers' "When Pop Stars Flirt With Danger" here. You're free to respond in any way that makes sense to you, but, if you're stuck, you might consider:

• What this piece has to do with the notion of the child celebrity
• Whether or not "taste" figures into the equation of "successful" celebrity
• Whether Miley Cyrus' recent VMA performance supports or detracts from Powers' thesis
• How women might respond to the rampant objectification--often by women themselves--perpetrated in these performances/videos

Post your responses as comments to this post. If you like, you're free to respond to the responses of other students, so long as the are very close to 250 words or more. If I were you, I'd compose my response in a word processing program and then copy & paste it into the comments box so as not to lose your comment if you press the "back" button.