The excerpt from my Tamburlaine paper is highly dubious but being worked over as we speak. Perhaps the central issue, as I see it, is the inaccurate deployment of the terms “universal” and “particular.” Although I meant “universal” in the sense of “absolute generality”––a crude version of Kant’s categorical imperative––“particular” remained an implied and rather misunderstood term.

I was also gently reminded that I need not wage an interstellar battle between Kierkegaard, Hegel and Tamburlaine in this paper. Although this is something like telling a depressed person to smile more (a line from Semenza), I’m trying to invoke the advice as much as possible.

And for no good reason, a picture of my baby nephew: (note the ‘36’ on his hoody; born Wu fan)