Playing Ketchup

When I was in elementary and middle school, teachers would occasionally proclaim a “catch-up day,” one where no additional work was assigned and no additional concepts were taught. Instead, students would go through the list of assignments and work on any they had not turned in. If you had all of your work turned in, you got to read (oh happy day!). These days were sometimes affectionately referred to by the homophone “ketchup,” and even symbolized on the blackboard with a sketch of a ketchup bottle.

Today, in the spirit both of catching up and of devoting more of my time to reading, I hatched a plan. During each of the next few months (and perhaps for longer), I will read a book or article that is entirely new to me and fills some hole in my education. Then, I’ll post about it somehow here (review, response, etc.). Here’s my (admittedly law- and West-centric) plan:

• May: Hobbes, Leviathan
• June: Kennedy, Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy
• July: Laslett, The World We Have Lost: England Before the Industrial Age
• August: Alexander, The New Jim Crow

September: Foucault, Discipline and Punish