tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80328582011-08-03T22:19:00.576-05:00Cute baby pictures, pretentious meditations on college teaching, sporadic political commentary--who could ask for anything more?Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.comBlogger4651100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-35489694319486317642010-10-28T09:07:00.002-05:002010-10-28T09:08:59.533-05:00

I don't know how often this site shows up on Google searches any more, but if you're looking for the Nathan Gilmour who lives in Georgia and teaches at Emmanuel College, I'm now part of a rather exciting group blog and podcast called The Christian Humanist. You can catch our latest at this link: The Christian Humanist Blog

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-72916136860478952502009-02-15T15:03:00.000-05:002009-02-15T15:04:30.357-05:00

Hardly the Last Word

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-5832137036444767782007-09-24T10:14:00.001-05:002007-09-24T10:15:11.347-05:00

Yes, folks, I think that the new blog is going to be my blog for the time being. If you've got hyperlinks or bookmarks, change 'em. If not, make some hyperlinks!

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-80871722404978534812007-09-22T15:34:00.000-05:002007-09-22T15:35:44.649-05:00

I'm not sure I'm going with Wordpress permanently, but it's been fun playing around with it.To see this blog with some new duds, head on over to what might become the new Hardly the Last Word.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1122075184399469142007-09-18T12:16:00.000-05:002007-09-18T12:32:45.251-05:00

We wrapped up our first unit on Republic proper today, and the discussions were quite good. I have to keep reminding the students (and myself) both how alien Plato's world was and how much we (the students and their teacher) are heirs to Plato's basic project.Plato's big question in today's section was how to determine who should serve the community in which ways. Always looking for reasoned

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-75603236452375203652007-09-15T16:21:00.001-05:002007-09-15T16:30:37.875-05:00

Thursday's classes were good, and I actually mananged to have two, very different conversations in them. Since I remember 11:00 a little better, I'll start with that.Their main concern was that Plato considers obscuring information for the good of community not much of a problem. Although they did not phrase it this way, they thought that the act of deception itself disqualifies a guardian as

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-78628140156432482402007-09-11T14:17:00.000-05:002007-09-11T14:25:54.385-05:00

Today's reading in Plato was pretty much setup; the real argument begins in Thursday's reading. Nonetheless, my classes both engaged the text with some enthusiasm, and I finished my teaching day tired but pleased with the results. The more I teach Plato, the more parallels strike me. The Ring of Gyges is obviously an influence on Tolkien; that's easy. But this time through, planning the lesson

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-13518487424588214062007-09-07T08:58:00.000-05:002007-09-07T09:55:08.281-05:00

Yesterday's classes were great; I really do have two good groups this year.I did kick myself after 11:00 class for trying to railroad them into the same discussion that 8:00 had. It's a bad habit of mine, and I think I might be in the process of breaking the habit for some time still. All the same, they had read carefully enough that they pretty much took the discussion and ran with it. Like

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-45579191549059187482007-09-01T14:37:00.000-05:002008-12-10T11:06:36.045-05:00

In case you've heard through the grapevine (or, perhaps, in case you haven't), a new Ooze.com book is coming out on September 22, and one of my essays is one of its chapters. Pretty cool, eh?The image itself links to the amazon.com entry for it.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-69514161024623603042007-09-01T12:09:00.000-05:002007-09-01T12:25:12.876-05:00

This fall's first-year comp groups are getting off to a really good start. Nobody seems to have flaked out utterly on paper one, and so far the discussions of Plato have been quite good. We launch into the Republic this Tuesday, and I'm excited to take this group through it.In conversation with Mary this week I realized why I've enjoyed teaching Plato even more than I have teaching Hebrew Bible

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-23880626278335028452007-08-28T09:18:00.000-05:002007-08-28T09:31:03.419-05:00

My 9:30 class (one I'm taking, not that I'm teaching) was mysteriously vacant today, so I'll go ahead and write now about today's Plato classes. (Those I teach.)Now that I'm doing Tuesday-Thursday comp classes and have fewer days to teach, I compressed the entire trial of Socrates into today's discussion. For whatever reason (can't remember if a student initiated the diversion or if I did), we

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-79098237306677879292007-08-27T10:57:00.001-05:002007-08-27T10:57:39.849-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-47300772745701130222007-08-16T15:09:00.000-05:002007-08-18T12:11:56.484-05:00

Well, the school year is back, and hopefully I'll be posting here with some regularity about my two freshman comp classes and the groovy things that we discuss.Both groups (I teach two sections per semester) look promising. I did my standard opening day exercise--before I introduced myself, took roll, handed them a piece of paper, or anything else of the sort, I had them pair up, learn each

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-60930279365371172692007-08-15T21:36:00.000-05:002007-08-15T21:37:04.645-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-67107829507595363542007-08-15T19:44:00.000-05:002007-08-15T19:45:14.077-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-25948507322789715362007-08-15T06:04:00.000-05:002007-08-15T06:05:09.734-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-85285425910021669312007-08-13T11:39:00.000-05:002007-08-13T11:42:52.693-05:00

Well, the new school year is upon me.Tomorrow I go in for EMMA re-orientation so that I can be slightly less lost than my freshmen when they submit their papers. Then I'm going to start Sidney's Arcadia.Wednesday I go in to help with new TA orientation, assisting bright young teachers as they learn to grade with hard heads and soft hearts. Or at least to get away with arbitrariness.Then

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-14892486046593076522007-07-28T09:40:00.000-05:002007-07-28T10:13:50.775-05:00

School will be starting up in just about three weeks, so look forward then to some more regular posts, most notably about my Plato class. Also, there might be Micah pictures in the next couple weeks or so.If you look down the right column, you'll see the RSS feed for the Conservative Reformed Mafia. Despite my own Thomist leanings and suspicion of American conservatism, they've invited me to

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-83770039810940625152007-07-13T14:32:00.000-05:002007-07-13T15:23:25.956-05:00

Well, now that everyone's had some time to look at pictures, I'll say that the trip was good, and I'm glad to have seen everyone, but I'm also glad to be home.The car ride up to Indiana was not too bad; we were all excited to see family, and we were anticipating a good trip. Micah, when he wasn't sleeping, was singing his ABC's. Cute.Our week in Indiana saw everyone in good health, and we got

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-68724160088180789352007-07-11T14:51:00.001-05:002007-07-11T14:51:48.706-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-65852918840362931822007-07-11T13:26:00.000-05:002007-07-11T13:28:39.366-05:00

Pics from the Burd segment of the trip should be online shortly.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-50820314360347275692007-06-22T13:36:00.000-05:002007-06-22T13:45:42.822-05:00

I've not looked forward to a trip so much in some time. Sunday after Sunday school Mary and I are loading up in the car and heading north to Indiana for a week, to Pennsylvania for a couple days, and to West Virginia until July 8. For that reason, this will likely be the last post until the second week of July (though I might get idle enough to try to post on the road). Expect some pictures

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-37965950687728191972007-06-22T12:34:00.000-05:002007-06-22T12:35:13.465-05:00

I'm going to clear off my memory card before we hit the road, so here are the latest from this blog's real star:

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-63140504121714224132007-06-16T14:37:00.002-05:002007-06-16T14:47:26.804-05:00

I think I've now got an actual working sermon outline for my oration on Luke 7:36-8:3 tomorrow morning. I've got a hook, some good exegesis, and enough revisions that it actually sounds like a coherent thought now. Now I've got to come up with something for children's sermon. Apparently everyone involved with VBS this week except me got the memo that we get the weekend off.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-2775083332541054642007-06-16T14:37:00.001-05:002007-06-16T14:37:39.794-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-25439152155086984642007-06-09T14:12:00.000-05:002007-06-09T14:14:30.675-05:00

I've just put a request in at the public library for a Milton Friedman book. It's only a little 200-pager, so I figure I can use it as a break from Ben Jonson and John Donne and Augustine. I figure some smart people have considered themselves capitalists, so I might as well take a gander at one of the powerhouses. More when the book gets to Bogart.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-54028779010710352912007-06-09T13:01:00.000-05:002007-06-09T13:03:14.932-05:00

I ought to start by saying that I'm not inclined to read spirituality books any newer than Saint John of the Cross, but Larry, whom I like a great deal, asked me to give Divine Intention a read, so I did.At first I thought the mixed genres were tedious. Each section begins with a quotation from Eugene Peterson's The Message translation of the book of Acts. No problems so far. Then each section

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-70460945821253741492007-06-07T12:55:00.000-05:002007-06-07T12:56:06.629-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-50185123983938714252007-06-04T14:15:00.000-05:002007-06-04T14:28:23.057-05:00

Comps reading bogged down somewhat this week. A bronchiolitis-sick, steroid-raging two-year-old will do that to a person.I am back into Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition today. I'm hoping that the Ooze thread picks up, but if not, I think it'll be a valuable book for me to have read anyway.I'm also reading back through volume one of Copleston's History of Philosophy and have

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-65593563014462624722007-05-25T15:58:00.000-05:002007-05-25T15:59:31.781-05:00

Alright, it's time to return to what brings readers to this blog--MICAH PICTURES!These span from Easter weekend to this morning. Hence the name.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-67998977305412241772007-05-24T17:34:00.000-05:002007-05-24T17:56:56.361-05:00

Those last Radical Orthodoxy summaries might or might not come soon.Along with Jeff and Robert from the Ooze, I'm now working my way through Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition, and the debate is wonderful. Given the utter confidence with which Milbank and company plow through their books, it's nice to read some theology and philosophy professors punching back. I'm not entirely

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-73485399656968713712007-05-19T10:03:00.000-05:002007-05-19T10:31:54.033-05:00

Alright, so here are some comments on the rest of the Radical Orthodoxy essays."Wittgenstein after Theology" by Conor CunninghamCunningham's basic upshot is that, despite Wittgenstein's reputation and his own insistence that he operates outside of metaphysical debates, he defaults to a Kantian-style immanentism, claiming agnosticism about "things in themselves." The problem with that move, as

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-84752449034608699232007-05-18T13:57:00.000-05:002007-05-18T14:01:37.448-05:00

I've finished Radical Orthodoxy and should write synopses of some of the major essays tomorrow. Now I'm about a quarter of the way into Milbank's The Word Made Strange, which I hope to finish before Mary gets done with her school year--it's a book that takes some solitude and some time to read.Right now I've got a copy of C.S. Lewis's monster book on 16th century English literature out from the

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-41882724292988375222007-05-14T08:25:00.000-05:002007-05-14T08:49:50.676-05:00

"The False Legacy of Suarez" by John Montag, the second essay in Radical Orthodoxy, sets out to clarify some of the changes in theological language that have happened inside those traditions called "Thomism." As the early modern era dawns, writes Montag, the medieval notion of revelation as something akin to light--something that illuminates for the sake of seeing what God has already created--

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-52310520764741112232007-05-11T14:21:00.000-05:002007-05-11T15:17:44.475-05:00

Actually understanding a Milbank essay is a nice experience. I just had such an experience. I'm reading Radical Orthodoxy for my comprehensive exams, and after a semester back in the philosophic saddle, I'm back to the point where I can understand what Milbank is writing when he writes "The Theological Critique of Philosophy in Hamann and Jacobi."So much of modern philosophy begins with the

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-28599488882838732562007-05-10T12:55:00.000-05:002007-05-10T13:01:05.741-05:00

Huzzah!I woke up at 4:00 this morning for perfectly natural reasons, and when I'd finished being perfectly natural, I discovered that I was fully awake. So, rather than putting off until tomorrow the tabulation of my semester grades, I decided to put finishing touches on my last paper AND knock my grades and end-of-semester teacher paperwork out. I did both and dropped everything where it

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-81085008405321574262007-05-05T12:52:00.000-05:002007-05-05T13:11:51.276-05:00

Just seeing if Blogger will take thorns.This is Caedmon's Hymn, BTW. Nu sculon herigean heofonrices weard, meotodes meahte and his modgeþanc, weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs, ece drihten, or onstealde. He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend; þa middangeard moncynnes weard, ece drihten,

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-79696814798415197032007-04-27T15:07:00.000-05:002007-04-27T15:08:19.715-05:00

I just noticed that I'd hit the four-digit mark. Thanks to all my readers, and to my mom, who knows as well as I do that she only checks for new Micah pictures.Hwaet!

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-70112171006359702092007-04-27T14:30:00.000-05:002007-04-27T14:38:04.466-05:00

I bought four dozen of 'em this morning, and my two freshman comp classes went through nearly all of them.Thus ends a semester that, frankly, disappointed me. I don't suppose every semester can be the best ever (life doesn't go that way), but I feel like I didn't give my best performance, and that's disappointing after last semester went so well.But that's of no import now. I've got about ten

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-80098885579148971982007-04-20T13:08:00.000-05:002007-04-20T13:42:57.375-05:00

I gave a full-on lecture, by my classes' request, to my freshmen today that began with Moses' writing down the law in Deuteronomy 32 and finished with the publication of the Harper-Collins Study Bible. They wanted to know how the Bible became the Bible, so I gave them the full treatment. Thirty-five hundred years of history in forty minutes? No problem!I did get to emphasize to them the

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-68224735889757896392007-04-14T11:42:00.000-05:002007-04-14T11:52:38.581-05:00

I taught my last lesson on biblical texts to my freshmen yesterday; the rest of the semester is going to be portfolio work and such. So no more musings on Job or David or Plato, for that matter. More of that in August.I suppose I'll be the three-millionth blogger to say a little something about the Don Imus debacle that went down this month. What blows my mind is neither that a dozen

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-15362656466431936992007-04-07T09:28:00.000-05:002007-04-07T10:21:28.745-05:00

We took on the last of Job and J.B. this week, and once again, the students got in their best fight over the endings. On one side were those who thought that "I'm the one worthy of rule, not you, so you don't get to cite rules at me" was a pathetic way to answer Job's questions, on the other were those who thought that Job was better for having "gone through" what happened to him. And before

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-73519959574618512842007-03-31T12:04:00.000-05:002007-03-31T12:05:34.311-05:00

Since Mary and I had the same Saturday off (it doesn't happen often enough), we took Micah to the park and took these pictures:Scenes from a Saturday

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-56410208503411511572007-03-30T15:31:00.000-05:002007-03-30T16:00:10.569-05:00

I really enjoy Job 22. Having lost the battle of wits with Job, having seen his arguments shredded and heard Job's speech end, at the end of chapter 21, with "all that is left of your answers is falsehood," he proceeds to make stuff up. In the face of Job's claims to innocence, and in direct contradiction to the narrator in chapters one and two, Eliphaz accuses the book's namesake of about half

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-73413838956328193512007-03-29T13:53:00.000-05:002007-03-29T14:11:44.742-05:00

I met today both with my major professor and with the professor over in the religion department, both of whom will be conducting my comprehensive exams a little over a year from now. Dr. Medine (over in Religion) liked my comps list, and Dr. Freer thinks I have an article-in-the-making cooking with my Milton paper. That makes three papers that I'll be shaping up to submit for publication next

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-17197814530046309502007-03-26T14:16:00.000-05:002007-03-26T14:29:29.075-05:00

Today I taught Job chapters 11-14, so I've got more plainly in mind the content of ch. 13 and its place in the scene. Job's speech that starts in chapter 12 and runs to chapter 14, his longest to that point in the book, responds to Zophar's proto-apophatic claim that the depth and height of God's wisdom makes his own claims to justice not wrong but spurious. The first thing that Job does is to

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-91290189441089297572007-03-23T14:03:00.000-05:002007-03-23T14:07:42.150-05:00

I've succumbed to a bit of image-consumerism. Since I had a 25% discount coupon, I bought myself a pocket-sized Moleskine notebook at Borders today. Now I have the groovy little notebook that wannabe poets and intellectuals like so much to carry around.The bottom of the ad page says something about contemporary nomadism... I have to chuckle at that. I'm about as far from nomadic as one might

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-55304992394998575982007-03-23T13:44:00.000-05:002007-03-23T13:58:24.291-05:00

It's been a while since I posted anything substantial, and I have to point to microbes as the culprits. About two weeks ago Micah got the flu. Then Mary got a virus that wasn't the flu. Then I got a bacterial something-or-other (perhaps strep?) that was unrelated to the previous two. Then Micah got strep. Then it was Wednesday of this week before I finally had a full day to work.So

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-50463993268581474132007-03-12T16:11:00.000-05:002007-03-24T13:44:09.279-05:00

To my readers with blogs of your own:At the prompting of my department, I've created a more formal academic web site. I've put a link to it in the links section in the right column.As a favor to me, I'd like to ask each of you to put my name, Nathan Gilmour, in a post with a link to that site. Its address is thus:http://ngilmour.myweb.uga.edu/index.htmlFrom what folks tell me, schools to which

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-81460612041247908072007-03-10T19:37:00.001-05:002007-03-10T19:37:41.766-05:00

Micah's Birthday

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-35296449996814789592007-03-08T12:27:00.000-05:002007-03-08T12:49:41.169-05:00

Monday we wrapped up the David unit with the rise of Solomon. I think that, by the end, my students had a real, literary familiarity with David, the kind that one gets by the end of Hamlet or the gospel of Luke. I asserted over and over during the course of the unit that the genius of the books of Samuel, the reason why 1 Timothy can say that it's good for instruction and why Rabbinic Judaisms

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-68505410274479815932007-03-08T05:56:00.000-05:002007-03-08T05:57:03.855-05:00

Recent Micah picsI've added some pictures from last weekend to this album.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-30669997027444331282007-03-03T17:30:00.000-05:002007-03-03T17:31:17.651-05:00

Yikes. I just finished the first part of the weekend's homework in Beowulf class. Fifty-four lines. Yeesh.Now on to the next bit...

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-55646213583922793822007-03-01T12:19:00.000-05:002007-03-01T12:42:37.627-05:00

I just spent forty-five minutes plowing through the first 12 pages of Adorno for next week. Welcome back, Cole's class.Yesterday I taught one of the most fun lessons in my Hebrew Bible and/as Literature class, the David and Bathsheba lesson. Tomorrow is another one, the Absalom lesson. David's cool-headed maneuvering in 2 Samuel 11 brought just the reactions that it brought last year--the

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-56993783119522845572007-02-24T10:43:00.000-05:002007-02-24T11:02:26.560-05:00

I find myself blessing Herbert Marcuse. After five weeks of Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, and Lukacs, we're finally reading a book whose Germanic style doesn't require minutes per page and whose words mean, for the most part, what they mean in other books. I'm flying through this stuff.Beowulf is never going to cruise along, but the translation is getting less tedious by the week as I internalize

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-83663917085627735732007-02-19T19:44:00.000-05:002007-02-19T19:45:57.161-05:00

Recent Micah picsWith Micah's birthday coming up and Uncle Ryan flying down, I cleared our camera's memory card. Here are a couple recent pics.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-22100809895062381082007-02-17T16:28:00.000-05:002007-02-17T16:29:14.746-05:00

It's funny. I don't care who you are.Link

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-34619063002204957342007-02-17T10:47:00.000-05:002007-02-17T10:58:28.230-05:00

At UGA this semester I'm in the process of putting together a university-approved teaching portfolio, and one element of that portfolio is a teaching philosophy. Here's my current workup of that philosophy, and I hope my faithful readers can give me some feedback. Teaching Philosophy An unstated conception of teaching and learning is one beyond critique; thus for the sake of

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-47251809009122866642007-02-16T16:29:00.000-05:002007-02-16T16:42:50.938-05:00

A busy week it's been.I presented on Georg Lukacs in our literary theory class and by all accounts did well.I translated another 150 lines of Beowulf. I read another book-and-a-half of Milton criticism.I took Micah to a doctor's appointment and our Matrix for its 15K mile service.And I started grading another batch of freshman papers.And that's outside of teaching my class. The last two days we

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-50797892979074664542007-02-08T17:53:00.000-05:002007-02-08T17:23:28.171-05:00

I realize the chart below is hard to read, but it also gets mad and crashes my browser when I try to edit it, so I'm going to learn my lesson about grumpy html and leave it alone.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-39358468999783837152007-02-08T17:19:00.000-05:002007-02-07T15:46:52.515-05:00

I saw it on Slim's blog, and it looked cool, so here are the locations of my blog's last ten visitors: 1 United StatesKalamazoo, Michigan 2 United StatesOrange, California 3 United StatesAmf Ohare, Illinois 4 United StatesConyers, Georgia 5 GermanyBerlin 6 United StatesHuntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania 7 United StatesKingsport, Tennessee 8 United StatesSomerville,

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-60260432525699139002007-02-07T08:19:00.000-05:002007-02-07T08:30:20.064-05:00

GO COLTS!

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-48373255481440985712007-02-06T09:50:00.000-05:002007-02-06T09:57:08.619-05:00

So here I am, between revision meetings, scrambling to say something to each paper as it comes to me. I've got six more groups to go (I think), and each one wears me down a bit more. As I say every semester, the value of these meetings, both as exemplary for the practice of group revision and as feedback into my students' writing, is valuable enough that I'm willing to kill myself once a

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-8120865584302872472007-02-02T14:49:00.000-05:002007-02-02T14:51:26.661-05:00

So far none of my students has fought me when I suggested rewriting.Audrey Guenther, are you reading this? :)Monday groups pick up a bit, and the whole shebang culminates on Wednesday, when I meet with four groups, then finishes out with two meetings on Friday.I need to write some David quizzes before that unit starts up--that's when and where a goodly (badly, really) number of students will

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-15371237812947624382007-02-01T13:44:00.000-05:002007-02-01T14:15:41.809-05:00

This semester really is turning out to be a grinder. But if I make it through this one, I'm done with major coursework operations. Mission Accomplished, one might say.Well, one might.The Psalms unit just plain went too fast. I'm glad that I spread out the revision days over more than a week (I tried doing them all in a week before and nearly killed myself), but three class periods just wasn't

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-66819015392738626522007-01-27T15:09:00.000-05:002007-01-27T15:10:00.523-05:00

400 posts! Woo hoo!Also, I've now translated 319 lines of Beowulf, or 10% of the thing! Hwaet!

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-8123272399017635422007-01-26T16:04:00.000-05:002007-01-26T16:20:23.267-05:00

We're two days into the Psalms unit now, and classes are picking up fast. I don't know whether I've just packed the first two papers too closely towards the semester's beginning or whether my own classes are hindering my ability to expend energy on my teaching, but paper two's revision meetings start next Friday, and I still don't feel like I know my classes. We've been close-reading thus far

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-15702789572963802392007-01-20T17:16:00.001-05:002007-01-20T17:16:55.527-05:00

Okay, you know that last post in which I said my students were overly compliant?Forget it.On the class's online discussion board, the pro-Joseph brigade has made a charge. Let the games begin!

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-2643501930057708832007-01-20T11:00:00.000-05:002007-01-20T11:05:39.194-05:00

I spent a fair bit of time in my classes on Friday laying out my theories about agency and grammar and why excessive passive and expletive constructions hinder good academic writing, so we had too little time, as usual, to talk about Joseph.This group of students, I think, tends too far towards malleability (or at least shows of malleability), and I'm going to have to watch it. When I focused

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-42162906371930185682007-01-18T10:04:00.000-05:002007-01-18T10:22:08.618-05:00

I found a small, 128MB mp3 player at Toys R Us for fifteen bucks. Since I only use such devices when I run, and since an hour and twenty minutes' music covers more time than my out-of-shape legs can, it's a great purchase.In Hebrew Bible teaching news, the first day of Joseph went entirely too quicly, so quickly that I ran out of time in both sections before I could get to writing instruction.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-42959107587069915442007-01-13T21:42:00.000-05:002007-01-13T21:46:07.287-05:00

Well, two playoff games and zero touchdowns given up...And half a dozen (I think) Manning interceptions with one touchdown thrown.I suppose the playoff season is a strange place to live.Lord help our Colts!

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-86616326469530412552007-01-12T16:31:00.000-05:002007-01-12T16:32:11.913-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-66967953698868910832007-01-12T14:40:00.000-05:002007-01-12T14:49:11.393-05:00

Drop/Add period ended at midnight last night, and the semester proper is under way.We did get-to-know-each-other stuff today, mainly so we could get into the texts with a little less tension in the air. Monday we begin Joseph, and I've already forgotten my Harper-Collins Study Bible in my office for the first time this semester. For this text that's no big deal; I can plan my lesson with just

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-10386782426091597192007-01-11T12:50:00.000-05:002007-01-11T12:58:13.613-05:00

All of my spring classes have now met, and the semester's going to be a rough one. I'm already feeling tired thinking of all the hours I'm going to spend reading Hegel and translating Beowulf. But when I make it through, I'll nearly be a Jedi.My Hebrew Bible and/as Literature classes have met twice, and at midnight tonight the rosters get finalized so that I can start the genuine class on

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-75942972256627838522007-01-09T08:28:00.000-05:002007-01-09T08:56:17.946-05:00

First, I'd like to thank the folks who commented on my first, haphazard post-Christmas post for reading and thinking with me. The following (still haphazard) reflections will attempt to respond to some of those comments.When I talk about a group's appropriating a common symbol and making it a shibboleth for one faction, I don't necessarily need to assert an all-encompassing conspiracy or even to

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-72127723705895201542007-01-08T19:12:00.001-05:002007-01-08T19:14:19.996-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-37852086721118638422007-01-08T19:09:00.001-05:002007-01-08T19:10:03.852-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-7801353664456673422007-01-08T16:13:00.001-05:002007-01-08T16:17:35.235-05:00

Christmas Trip 2006I'm not sure how this particular Picasa widget works, but I suppose clicking on it might yield pictures.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-73783600461686047222007-01-04T17:28:00.000-05:002007-01-04T17:50:51.510-05:00

If ever anyone actually fought a War on Christmas, I think they won this year. For the first time in my 29 years, I started feeling uneasy when people wished me a Merry Christmas. The greeting, friendly or at worst benign throughout my years, started in 2006 to sound like a Republican code word.I never called myself "pro-life" for very long, and I thought that "family values" sounded a bit

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-53119801891326015862007-01-02T17:10:00.000-05:002007-01-02T17:17:48.027-05:00

11 days, 2200 miles, four family get-togethers, one stomach virus, and a case of strep later, and we're back!Christmas pictures will be coming soon, but since Micah's contagious for one more day (he's doing quite well on an antibiotic and never, as far as I can tell, realized that he was sick), I'm not going to have any little-hands-free computer time tomorrow, so the impatient will simply have

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-71547334392629943742006-12-19T19:47:00.001-05:002006-12-19T19:51:11.951-05:00

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-57760212390492344252006-12-19T19:05:00.000-05:002006-12-19T19:09:10.369-05:00

I knew that next semester was going to be rough, but my professor for Hegelian and post-Hegelian literary theory just posted his reading list along with a Darth Vaderesque warning about the reading load. Yeesh!I just ordered Eagleton's book for an early January brush-up (hopefully it'll show up while I'm out of town) and the Hegel tome to get cookin' over that. Fitzner told me this professor is

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-41415792937336612822006-12-18T15:11:00.000-05:002006-12-18T15:15:03.548-05:00

"Don't Cry for Pinochet"His embrace of economic reform seems unlikely to have sprung from a commitment to freedom, given the overarching contempt for liberty that characterized the rest of his government. Rather, in order to insulate himself from the consequences of his murderous seizure of power, Pinochet sought out political allies, and his free market reforms helped him to garner support

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-2328127628016277472006-12-18T13:52:00.000-05:002006-12-18T14:09:20.854-05:00

After a frenzy of post-Marxist theory and post-Freudian analysis--that is to say, after reading up on the last decade's scholarship for my end-of-semester papers--I've dug into Robert Fagles's translation of Homer's Iliad. To say that such a shift is a relief simply does no justice to the joy of reading old books without the nattering critics and their little academic careers. (I'm harboring no

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-46632302059081460002006-12-18T13:28:00.000-05:002006-12-18T13:30:00.546-05:00

Mike from the Ooze has once again photoshopped me.

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-44193525754818822702006-12-14T16:56:00.000-05:002006-12-14T17:05:19.623-05:00

The Feminisation of ChileThe strong women of a generation ago were not the product of an evolving society, but created by events – and I don’t mean Allende’s experiment, in which women were mostly helpmeets. Mónica González, the country’s top investigative journalist, who was jailed for her human rights stories in the 1980s, credits the dictatorship for that brief awakening. ‘Since the people

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-51182088558407884442006-12-11T08:37:00.000-05:002006-12-11T08:39:20.541-05:00

Mixed Reaction to Pinochet's DeathAnother of the Cold War's monsters now faces divine judgment. May his years as dictator of Chile serve as a warning to empires--God knows with whom you ally.School of the Americas Watch

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-7389998824736592992006-12-09T17:15:00.000-05:002006-12-09T17:16:55.154-05:00

It seems that I've accidentally wiped out a fair bit of my blog's goodies while fiddling with BetaBlogger. I suppose I should treat this as an opportunity rather than a curse, so check back frequently for the new look of Hardly the Last Word!We're doomed!

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-42723258827760404402006-12-09T17:10:00.000-05:002006-12-09T17:12:50.847-05:00

I'm thanking the heavens as I type that I've never had to cast one of these legendary affairs, but the article is just too funny:Come Christmas, there are always those cynics who dismiss infant nativity plays as pointless charades. What lessons, they ask, are to be learnt in the modern age from watching kids trying to work out what a "virgin's womb" is and how not to "abhor" it? The answer is

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1165682078056372752006-12-09T11:34:00.000-05:002006-12-09T14:20:03.043-05:00

I have to republish to get the hit counter to show up, so here goes...(It's right below the "my library" bit.)

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1165347642289813442006-12-05T14:33:00.000-05:002006-12-05T14:40:42.296-05:00

These pics received honorable mention when we were making up Christmas cards.  

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1165346780986931532006-12-05T14:24:00.000-05:002006-12-05T14:26:20.986-05:00

Some of the Micah-and-Christmas-tree pictures that didn't make it onto the Christmas cards but are still darn cute  

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1165346569159351062006-12-05T14:22:00.000-05:002006-12-05T14:22:49.160-05:00

Write your own caption! 

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1165346334146544522006-12-05T14:17:00.000-05:002006-12-05T14:18:54.146-05:00

Micah and the 2006 Gilmour Christmas tree 

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1165346172137199142006-12-05T14:03:00.000-05:002006-12-05T14:16:12.146-05:00

I don't know what happened to Micah's hair, but he seems to be enjoying whatever it is 

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1165253428681002902006-12-04T12:26:00.000-05:002006-12-04T12:30:28.696-05:00

The sermon went well yesterday, and in the process of researching for it, I ran into one of the most fun vice-words I've ever seen, the Latin crapula. My Latin class ends tomorrow (exempt from the final), and my students upload their portfolios tomorrow evening. Friday is the Old English exam, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem since I've got Thursday completely off. I've got a

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1164759453067348312006-11-28T18:18:00.000-05:002006-11-28T19:17:35.623-05:00

The last sprint is on. I've taught my last class (we're still meeting, but it's all peer revision from here on out), Spenser class has seen its last meeting, and only four Latin and four Old English classes remain. I can't remember a semester coming to a crashing halt as fast as this one is about to, but that's probably my bad memory more than anything else.The Spenser paper is going to get

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1164473737470693462006-11-25T11:26:00.000-05:002006-11-25T11:55:37.493-05:00

For the first semester in a long time, I'm only going to be working on one paper during the home stretch, and I've already got that half-written. I'm going to try to force myself through a Marxist history of early-modern pre-capital and use it in my analysis (just to pacify the professor), but I'm mainly going to be focusing on the virtue of temperance in Platonic and Aristotelian molds, the

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1164146312642787412006-11-21T16:48:00.000-05:002006-11-21T16:58:32.660-05:00

We wrapped up the discussion part of the semester yesterday with a conversation about John Milton's treatise "On Education." As I usually do when I teach that fun little text, I started by having the class list all of the things Milton would have Englishmen learn by the time they're 21 years old. One class came up with 46 things, the other 48. Take a look at the treatise, and you'll see that

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8032858.post-1163621777624731672006-11-15T15:09:00.000-05:002006-11-15T15:16:17.650-05:00

It would be kind of cool if this blog post landed on some Star Wars fan's google search.That aside, we actually finished up Monday with his bizarre section on reincarnation. I'm still not sure whether the story of Er is allegory or doctrine or some clever combination of the two, but I do think that Plato's joke at the very end is just silly. In today's class we looked at the unapologetically

Nathan P. Gilmourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00731491771737922242noreply@blogger.com0