MINING THE CLASSICS

A comic book remake of Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” in Russia has critics upset. “Convertible cars, cocaine and sushi bars provide the backdrop for the comic-book reworking, set in the present day and casting its characters as fast-living members of Russia’s idle rich. The novel’s heroine is depicted as a femme fatale with a mobile phone, a taste for luxury lingerie and, by the end of the comic, a drug habit that drives her to suicide.” – National Post (Canada)

TA’s OF THE WORLD UNITE

Last month teaching assistant graduate students at New York University voted to unionize. “The vote was immediately translated into an attack on the very framework of academic collegiality, and the board’s decision to allow the vote was denounced by other universities facing similar union threats. Loudest in their condemnation were Yale University officials, who have succeeded for almost a decade in thwarting a graduate organizing effort on their own campus.” – Village Voice 12/28/00