Following her reading last night, Joyce Carol Oates doled out writing (and life) advice as part of the more intimate colloquium this morning.

Oates began with, ended with, and repeatedly emphasized throughout a quote by Bernard Malamud: "Write your heart out." She drew heavily upon her past experiences as a writer--one of the most prolific of the modern era--to provide advice and debunk common misconceptions held by young writers.

Joyce Carol Oates on writing, from the colloquium:
On happiness:
"Happy people are great to have around--everyone wants to marry a cheerful person--but you don't want to be only happy. It's just not very exciting."

This summer I read a book that shocked me. It made me realize that I, an intelligent female, had put myself in situations where I could have been date-raped. And before I read the book, I never even realized how close I could have been. Now perhaps I'm slightly naive- but honestly, until it happens to you or your friend, who isn't?
I was lucky- I wasn’t one of the unfortunate women who said no and were ignored. But I want to share with everyone “The mindset of justification” that can lead some men into date-rape. Without remorse. Without regret. Without recognizing that they did anything wrong.

The following are sections of the book I read- How Dangerous Men Think. This is from the date rape chapter. (Note- the book was written in Australia, so some of the words are a bit foreign- like lift instead of elevator)

“I remember interviewing a young guy under arrest for the rape of a young woman he had met at a nightclub earlier in the evening. To my surprise he was quite happy to talk about the events of the evening, even to the point of admitting that he had had intercourse with the young woman in question when it was quite clear that she didn't want him to. In an attempt to defend his actions he told me he had been invited back to the woman's place, that he had been buying her drinks during the night and had even paid for the taxi. He added that they had already had sex once that evening and that about an hour later he wanted to do it again, but she wasn't so keen. He told me she "wasn't so keen" because she was yelling and screaming at him to stop and trying to push him off. I asked him what he did at this stage, to which he replied, that he held her down and had sex with her. When I asked if he could see the problem with that he said "mate, I’d been buying her drinks all night; I paid for the bloody taxi; we'd already done it once. Yeah she was saying "no", come on mate, they all say "no" what's the problem?” The “problem” was he had just admitted to committing sexual assault. The "problem" was he ended up going to prison for it. The "problem" was that he didn't think he had done anything wrong"

hey (soon-to-be) freshman, here's a guest post by Anne Crossman, a Stanford-educated author with some tips about how to, uh, get the best out of orientation (and then some!) --darius

So, you’ve got your dorm assignment for the year…your summer reading well underway (!)…and you’ve most likely been hitting the Back to School sales pretty hard in the hopes of making your new home at Stanford a bit, well, homier. Ah yes, I remember the nauseous excitement well.

It was just a few years ago that I, too, had packed every crevice of my parents’ white minivan with what I thought I couldn’t live without for the year, pulling up to Stern Hall at 7:30am as my Twainie RA’s were getting set to unroll the red, uh, foil gift wrap. It took me by complete surprise when they welcomed me by name as if they had been waiting for me for the last four years; any qualms I had about moving away from home vanished.

I was walking around at the Stanford Bookstore and I saw this book:

The book is called Enhancing Evolution - the Ethical Case for Making Better People. by John Harris. (Amazon, Princeton University Press ) and it looks like a very interesting book indeed.

The book covers Harris's arguments for why we ought to promote technologies that would allow us enhance our bodies - most notably through altering our DNA. A lot of people have a general sense of repulsion to that idea, but Harris asks us to think about the other ways we enhance ourselves - glasses, coffee, drugs, surgeries, chemotherapy. We do so many unnatural things to our bodies in an attempt to make ourselves better. Harris argues it is our nature and sometimes our moral duty, to improve ourselves and help improve others.

I'm personally supportive of genetic enhancement because I think the greatest threat to humanity is 1) our own inability to make short-term sacrifices in pursuit of long-term goals - leading to failed diets and global warming. And 2) our propensity towards xenophobia and violence which divide us and cause so much suffering through wars and other conflicts. These are inclinations that are not caused by society as they are inclinations evolved into humans through the millions of years of living in small groups, facing immediate dangers from the world and from other groups.

I read a couple chapters in the bookstore and I think the writing is accessible and ethically sound. I'm writing an honors thesis on the ethics of patient selection in organ transplantation so I'm familiar with basic ethical theories, but you don't even need to know that to enjoy and learn from this book. Check it out.

Tim Ferriss is the author of "The Four Hour Work Week"


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Timothy Ferriss recommends you check email only once per week, don't read the newspaper and don’t save for retirement. These are only a few of the taboo recommendations found in Tim’s book, “The 4-Hour Work Week.”

It would be easy to dismiss Tim’s advice as lunacy if it weren’t for his impressive list of achievements. Tim used his time-saving technique to learn six languages, become a National Chinese kickboxing champion, and a Guinness World Record holder in tango, all at 29. Tim now adds author of the #1 business book in America according to the Wall Street Journal to his long list of accomplishments.

Tim candidly discusses the contents of his book, his life philosophy and how he propelled his book to #1 using blog marketing. Tim's ability to use technology to do more with less time and money is impressive and fresh.

- Nir

First, the title: it refers to the long-held Western belief that “All swans are white.” This was a belief given up in a second once Australia was discovered and a black swan sighted. What the experts had counted upon was untrue and it unsettled ornithology. That anecdote is the whole point of the book: you cannot predict anything with any great degree of accuracy.