Long Sunday

LS and you

One of my flaws as a teacher is that I really can't handle "dead time." I jabber through silences. When the conversation stops, even if only momentarily, my heart drops, a belt of adrenaline hits my arteries, and I kick things back on to track, for better or worse. I've heard stories about teachers who are better about this, who can stand 5 minutes of silence without freaking out. Alas, I'm not sure if prolonged stoppages will ever be for me.

So just imagine what the near-silence chez nous is having on me! LS is having a bit of a slow period. A prolonged slow period, actually. Which is totally understandable. People are busy, things need to get done, and if anyone knows about the ebb and flow of blogjuice, it's me. (I've been killing my blogs off since before many of you had heard the word "blog" for the first time...)

But I'll admit, this is starting to make me a bit sad. It wouldn't be an overstatement, I think, to say that at one point LS was one of the blogs to turn to if you were interested in an amalgam of theory, left politics, loosely literary analysis, and related fields. It is a blog that should exist, don't you agree?

Anyway, this is dangerous pool, for certain, but desperate times call for desperate posts. If you are interested in writing for LS, I encourage you to write me and say so. I think that we would be especially interested in people who have some blogging / writing experience, and, obviously, have some interests in common with those that have written for the site in the past. So tell me a little bit about yourself, point me to your own blog / writings / whatever. And I'll let the others know about your interest and we'll go from there.

One thing: don't count yourself out because of your professional position or lack thereof. We've always been a pretty eclectic group on this front. A lot of graduate students, a lot of non-academics, a few faculty folks. Mostly what I'm interested in are people who would like to write here fairly regularly, who write well, and have an interest in one or more of the following fields:

- left politics
- "theory" and philosophy
- politically or theoretically inflected approaches to literature, film, popular culture, music, art, architecture, philosophy, and so on...
- other  issues that have some connection to the above.

 

Another thing: obviously pseudonymity is fine by me, so don't let that rule you out either.

This is obviously a bit dangerous, as maybe no one will write me and then the question becomes where to go from there. We don't want that to happen, so drop me a line...

International Slugfest

Holy Shit.  Time to visit Nairn's most necessary corrective once again, I guess.

Regarding the Scull Controversy

Rather than going away as an issue, the Scull versus the Foucauldians debate seems to be spreading. It seems odd to me that people are willing to get worked up over this issue. Afterall, standard periodizations of Foucault's work place The History of Madness outside his developed periods; viz., the archaeological, the genealogical, and the problematization. That is, within the Foucauldian corpus itself, The History of Madness is an outlier (not unlike his commentary on Kant's anthropology, his book on Roussel, or the disavowed Maladie mentale et personnalité). The question, then, appears not to be about the place of The History of Madness in Foucault's own oeuvre - a concept that should no doubt be question by anyone who takes Foucault's work seriously - but, rather, about what "Foucault," that is to say "Theory," signifies in the context of (primarily) (North) American disciplinary politics. (Although, it is worth pointing out that comparing passages from the "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" essay with The History of Madness is, at best, strange - it is wrong-headed to criticize a non-genealogical work for not being genealogical!) Scull is engaged in a territorial pissing match with rivals. His concern, it seems to me, is to reject the work of Foucauldians by nit-picking Foucault's major dissertation. (I guess it is easier to take on a dead guy's dissertation than it is to take on work published by Nik Rose twenty years ago.) Predictably, the "Theory" warriors - themselves derivative hacks of the worst sort - are all to happy to jump into Scull's boat in an effort to push their own agenda within the narrow perspective of American English departments.

(Cross-posted from theoria.)

Haditha Friedman

Lest it need be said, Haditha is not an abberation.  Only let's remember too, the folks who helped–and were paid handsomely–to put us there.  If one only ever reads five things about Thomas Friedman, hack, let four of them be these.      

Update:  Crooked Timber has taken the "hackery" meme and run so, you could also go there  (after clicking the links below, of course!).

Intellectuals and Power

Long Sunday has seen recent speculations on the relationship between intellectuals (cold, narrow, and resenting!) and political power.  It is, of course, a hot topic, with that Straussian conspiracy in full swing in significant sections of the American administration and the rise to power of the Conservation Party (formerly the Conservative-Reform Alliance Party -- no shit: their accronym was CRAP) in Canada with its ties to the Fraser Institute and, thus, the so-called "Calgary School" of Strausso-libertarian policy wonks.  Not to be outdone, the social democratic party, the NDP, has Jack Layton, a former professor, as its leader.  Really not wanting to be outdone after suffering increasingly embarassing defeats, the Liberal Party, also informally known as the Natural Ruling Party, is in search of a new leader.  That is, in their minds, the next Prime Minister of Canada.

Among the contestants for this most honoured of offices are Michael Ignatieff and Stephane Dion, both former professors.  According to the Toronto Star, the Liberal Party needs candidates with more than just "big brains", they also -- aiming at the rookie MP Ignatieff -- need candidates who are experienced at "simultaneously playing for themselves and the team".  As far as I can tell, Ignatieff, as a successful (note: not necessarily good!) academic, is no doubt well versed in the art of promoting the self through promoting the department's interest.  Afterall, this narrow conception of politics is precisely what we practice in the academy.

After being strong opponents of Ignatieff's candidacy in the riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, the Toronto Star has taken up the cause of attacking Ignatieff on the basis of his 'pro-torture-lite' stance.  And excerpt from an essay, "Torture: Does it make us safer? Is it ever OK?", appears in today's Toronto Star under the title, "Ignatieff's Tortured Logic". 

Intellectuals and the "Real World"

The title may remind some of an MTV show, but what brought me to the topic was a recent post at Philosophy.com.  Gary comments on a discussion between Francis Fukuyama and Bernard-Henri Levy in the American Interest.  Most of it is your garden variety rehash of the greatness and benevolence of America, neoconservativism, and the future of  "Wilsonianism" (i.e., destroying the world while making it safe for capitalism.)  But what caught my attention, and seemed relevant in light of recent comments by a certain Slovenian, were their respective thoughts on the role of the intellectual and their relationship to power:

FF: The idea that an intellectual must always speak truth to power and never compromise means for ends seems to me a rather naive view of how intellectuals actually behave, and reflects in many ways the powerlessness of European intellectuals and their distance from the real world of policy and politics. Of course, the academy must try to remain an institutional bastion of intellectual freedom that is not subject to vagaries of political opinion. But in the United States, to a much greater degree than in Europe, scholars, academics and intellectuals have moved much more easily between government and private life than in Europe, and are much more involved in formulating, promoting and implementing policies than their European counterparts. This necessarily limits certain kinds of intellectual freedom, but I'm not sure that, in the end, this is such a bad thing.

The Day After President's Day

Harvard University, in a post-President's Day gift to the world, announced today that the second most controversial President in the United States would resign from his position effective the end of the current the academic year.  While not quite as famous as the most controversial President in the United States, who has instituted a torture archipelago, a number of illegal wars, and even more illegal polices at home, Lawrence H. Summers is nonetheless widely -- and justifiably -- loathed for saying a number of really dumb things.  (More dumb things.) By resigning now, Summers dodges a second no-confidence vote by the members of the arts and sciences faculty, scheduled for February 28.

In his letter of resignation, Summers writes:

As fulfilling as they have been in many ways, these last years have not been without their strains and moments of rancor. After a period of sabbatical and reflection, I look forward to taking up the tasks of teaching and research at the University and to returning to my professional preoccupation with questions of national and international economic policy. In the meantime, I hope and trust that we will together move through the remainder of this academic year in a spirit of good will and constructive engagement with the work of the University.

I will treasure the continuing friendship and support of so many exceptional colleagues and students at Harvard. I will always be grateful for the opportunity to have served as Harvard's President.

More: Inside Higher Ed, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education.

Latest Salvos

Lindsay Waters strikes again, four years ago (there's also a nice article on Perec).   I say, if you cannot beat 'em, join 'em.   The shame-faced and guilty decades-long Theory-pusher makes amends at last.   And why not?

(Update:  It's been brought to my attention that these two posts may be riding a little hard on Lindsay Waters, so for something a bit less snarky-popular and more philosophical perhaps, why not read this review by Steven Shaviro, from May of 2004.)

Separated at birth?

 To continue with a theme....More ill-thought out and badly timed lookalikes

Warning: This Sort of Thing May Actively Bore You

Two items: the first comes via the indispensable good taste of Political Theory Daily Review, whom you should all vote for, by the way. It is a review of Stanley Cavell.
The second may bore you. Then again, it may not. If not, perhaps you could venture to give your reasons in the coments box provided directly below.

Today, in 2005, it looks as if Sontag was dead wrong, her words a painful reminder of how foolish we all sounded back then when we wore our bell-bottoms and tie-dyed T-shirts. Interpretation has established its dominion over American literary scholarship. In so doing, it is threatening to wipe out 30 years of postmodernism that emerged out of the intellectual ferment of the 1960s. Can we break its hold?