*and the dust-bunnies scattered, and the rusty gears creaked*

There are neural pathways in my brain that have long been disused. They now feel quite overgrown with weeds and criss-crossed with giant, sticky, spiders' webs.

(In what is, perhaps, my most unfortunate metaphor yet, I take out my machete, and work my way down those pathways once more.)

I'm enjoying Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. I really am -- but --

The book developed out of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values.

The author is Martha C. Nussbaum; the copyright holders are the Preseident and Fellows of Harvard College. That should tell you something.

I have not read anything this densely and formally academic in eighteen years. Although I got my education at fairly competitive colleges, they were not Harvard. And although I know something of the Enlightenment from my education in English literature and the history that went with that, I did not focus on Political Philosophy from the seventeenth century to the present.

I also have this vague sense that, in order to read this book as the author intended, I should go through the pages with a neon yellow highlighter, and work up an outline, for each chapter and section, jotting down main points and questions in a dedicated notebook as I go, so I can be prepared to study for the midterm.

( A sample paragraph from this book, and my reaction to it, the latter of which proves that, deep down, I am still ten years old. )

Still, it feels good to give the brain a hefty bit of exercise (and yes, it feels like exercise)