"The atoms, as their own weight bears them down plumb through the void, at scarce determined times, in scarce determined places, from their course decline a little- call it, so to speak, mere changed trend. For were it not their wont thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one, like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void; and then collisions ne'er could be nor blows among the primal elements; and thus nature would never have created aught."
-Lucretius, Of The Nature of Things
My name is Jim Brown. I'm a Ph.D. Candidate in Rhetoric at the University of Texas where I teach courses in Rhetoric and Literature. This blog focuses on my academic research, but you'll also find the occasional post about music or baseball. Check out my CV for more information about my research and publications. I also maintain two other blogs, and you can see all of my blog writings by viewing this RSS feed.
I'm a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. This lets you know that I'm kind of a masochist and explains the name of my dog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.
yes there are various Meetups in major cities held quite frequently. It happened at a NY meetup and Brandt followed up.