Our friend Loren Eaton, of the I Saw Lightning Fall blog, sent me this link from Tor.com, an article by Ryan Britt on the new BBC Sherlock series (which you may recall I liked), linking it to Science Fiction.

The notion of Sherlock being a sort of cerebral superhero came up a lot. He does seem a lot like Mr. Spock or The Doctor when viewed through a certain lens. However, there might be something even more alien about Holmes than Data, Spock, or The Doctor put together. Doctor Who show-runner and co-creator of Sherlock, Stephen Moffat explains in this brief interview below.

First Thoughts, the First Things blog, links to this article on a remarkable educational phenomenon going on in Kurdish Iraq. In a piece called “Something Terrible and Wonderful,” Joseph Knippenberg tells of a new university, where westerners teach in the old western liberal tradition.

From what I can tell (having visited the institution some months ago), the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani is unique in Iraq, where higher education emphasizes rote learning, large lectures, and high-stakes testing. By contrast, at AUIS, classes are small and discussion-oriented. The students understand and appreciate the difference, as this press release about auditions for a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth seems to indicate:

I don’t even like poetry,” said Khende Asaad, an International Studies major from Erbil. “But when I hear Shakespeare, I feel like this big door is opening, and something terrible and wonderful is about to happen.”