FIELD NOTES
Britain's biggest curmudgeon/The pencil pushers/Nastiness on the Nile, and more
BREAKTHROUGH BOOKS
Intellectual Property
INSIDE PUBLISHING
More trouble at the O.K. Corral/I-beams and insects/On-line guidelines, and more
New Word Order
This fall, a computer will be handing out grades in at least one university classroom.
Its inventors say it evaluates student essays as accurately as a professor would
simply by calculating the frequency and distribution of words.
Nonsense, say linguists. Is the meaning of language simply a function of statistics?
How intelligent is the Intelligent Essay Assessor?
BY CLIVE THOMPSON
The Tech 20
Are machines rational? What does the latest trend in software design owe to an architect? Can a map ever be useful to the blind? Not long ago, these conundrums would have been the stuff of airy speculation. Today, technology-savvy professors suspect they have it all figured out. Lingua Franca presents twenty scholars whose innovative high-tech research has yielded answers—and questions—for the information age.
The Unmaking of Rigoberta Menchú
When David Stoll accused Guatemalan activist, Nobel Prize-winner, and radical icon Rigoberta Menchú of deception, he became a bête noire to the left and a cause célèbre
to the right. But Stoll's argument—and Guatemalan history—is more complex than the ideological mudslinging suggests. A behind-the-scenes account of how a Middlebury College anthropologist's quest to redraw the battle lines of the Guatemalan civil war raised tough questions, both about Guatemala and about himself.
BY HAL COHEN
Behind the Veil
John Rawls's A Theory of Justice is among this century's most famous works. Since its publication in 1971, the hefty blueprint for a liberal society has sold 200,000 copies and inspired more than five thousand essays and books. But Rawls himself has remained a mystery. A close look at what the theory owes to the man.
BY BEN ROGERS
HYPOTHESES
Jim Holt reveals the speed of time.
***Sneak Preview***
from the September issue of Lingua Franca
The Heirs of Ayn Rand
Has Objectivism gone Subjective?
by Scott McLemee
