Essays

Movie Reviews

Steven Spielberg's AI - A Clockwork Lemon
The Sum of All Fears
Collateral Damage

Academic Essays

These are mostly essays I wrote for various graduate classes. A few caveats here: I've posted these papers primarily to assist others who might be writing papers on these subjects. That isn't to say that these are "model" essays, by any means. Most of them were 'A' papers; some were not. The format and subject material of the papers, in many cases, was dictated by the class for which it was written. The literature papers, in particular, contain a fair amount of academic nonsense, as that seemed to be what the professor was looking for. Also, if you quote from any of these papers, please cite the URL in your paper.

History

A Review of David Fromkin’s A Peace to End All Peace

Miscellaneous Literature

The Meta-Narrative of Conrad's The Secret Sharer
The Artist as Parasite in Ibsen’s The Master Builder
No Rest for the Weary: The Curse of Adam in Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking”
The Bottom of Heaven: Moral Dualism in Toni Morrison’s Sula
Obsession and Separation: The Nature of Evil in the Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Voltaire, Rousseau and the French Revolution

An Anatomy of Optimism: Candide as Menippean Satire
The Larger Lie: The Misuse of Rousseau’s Myth of the State of Nature
The Roots of Totalitarianism in Rousseau’s Social Contract
Origins of the French Revolution (Essays on LeFebvre and Connelly)

Philosophy

Fact and Value in Science: A Model for the Quest for Meaning
Circle the Wagons: A Skeptical Appraisal of Frankfurt's Defense of Descartes' Validation of Reason

Film

Pretty Woman: The Quintessential Chick Flick
Psycho: A Study in Storytelling
AI: Artificial Intelligence: A Magnificent Failure
Blade Runner: Apocalypse Noir
Braveheart: A Study in the Classical Style

Religion

A Comparison of Fundamentalist, Liberal, and Secular Views of the Bible