NEW! "HOW DID GOD GET STARTED?"
Here's a link to my newest article, which appears in the Fall 2010 issue of Arion, Boston University's journal of humanities and the classics. In it I ask a few leading questions about the pedigree of You-Know-Who.

"WHAT DARWIN GOT WRONG"
Here's a link to a letter I wrote that was recently published in The New York Review of Books that defends the role of narrative explanation in science and other areas of inquiry. It elicited a response from Richard Lewontin himself, who's a great hero of mine (though I don't always agree with him), and whose NYRB article denouncing some scientists' "idle speculation" I was critiquing. Apparently, he preferred other letters to mine, but mine was the one the editors chose to publish. Go figure.

"THE MYSTERY
OF SOCRATES' LAST WORDS"
The death of Socrates is a cultural icon that lies at the heart of Western civilization. But his mysterious last words have kept us from fully understanding its meaning. My explanation of them is simple, even obvious, and has been hiding in plain sight for 2,400 years. It was published recently in Arion, Boston University's journal of classics and the humanities.

"JOSEPH NEEDHAM'S BIG QUESTION"
NYRB (12/18/08) Here's a link to an earlier letter of mine that was published in The New York Review of Books on the question "Why Didn't Science Rise in China?"

Kathryn Ringrose's THE PERFECT SERVANT: EUNUCHS AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER IN BYZANTIUM (U of Chicago, 2003)
This might interest you if you follow gender studies, or if you are into Byzantine history and culture.

OPINIONS:
"IMPEACHMENT IS NOT ABOUT IRAQ"
Here's an opinion piece I wrote for my local paper, The Plattsburgh Press-Republican, calling for the impeachment of President Bush. All elected officials swear an oath to support the Constitution, and the president has systematically attacked the Constitution. I argue here that any public official who
does not support impeachment has failed to
honor his or her oath of office.