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The article discusses efforts on behalf of interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge in U.S. higher education humanities field, adapted from the book "Paper Minds: Literature and the Ecology of Consciousness," by the article's author. Topics, including expertise, philosopher Steven Pinker's criticism of the humanities, free indirect discourse, empathy and the pluralistic worldview, are discussed.

The article presents the author's views on the protests made by Chinese people to end zero Covid policy with the blank sheets of paper in their hands, indicating how censorship, propaganda, and the government's iron grip on all discourse had restricted a generation's ability to express itself.

Focuses on argumentative writings of college students. Confusion on the definition of argument in teaching the writings; Impact of a student culture on the creation of the writings; Need for college teachers to defend a discourse model when teaching argument.

Offers a look at the issues presented by humanities scholars, who see their growing estrangement from mainstream discourse, at the 120th Modern Language Associations convention in the U.S. in 2004. Papers that were featured in the proceedings; Focus of much of the discussion at the annual meeting over the past years; Books that were cited by the association's outgoing president Robert Scholes, used to assess the state of literary and language studies.

The article discusses the nature of the literary biography as a genre, highlighting its flaws and debating the appropriateness of biographers' interpretations on their subjects' lives. Several works are cited, including the biography of literary critic Alfred Kazin by Richard M. Cook, wherein it is suggested that Cook makes speculations into the psychopathology of his subject which are beyond his expertise. The difficulties of clearly writing commercially-focused biographies are discussed in detail, such as distinction between fact and editorial notes, the proper handling of sensationalism, and the balance between commercialism and journalism.