Monthly Archives: November 2004

mortality of the humanities

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“When the academic humanities are finally, definitively destroyed by the studied, self-important irrelevance of theorists’ dogmatically inaccessible progressivist stance, no one will be able to complain that there were not cogent warnings of what was to come.” –Erin O’Connor

If the academic humanities are finally destroyed–and reports of this impending destruction are greatly exaggerated–it will not be because of theorists. Death will come when people finally give in to the notion that institutions of higher education should be financially profitable enterprises run like corporations, and when they give in to the notion that the purpose of higher education is to allow those who partake of its benefits to earn more money at their jobs. What chance do the humanities have then? It won’t matter if humanities academics are writing like Jacques Derrida or like Cleanth Brooks. All the good writing in the world will not save the academic humanities at that point.

“This thing upon me like a flower and a feast. This thing upon me crawling like a snake. It’s not death, but dying will solve its power … And as my hands drop a last desperate pen in some cheap room they will find me there and never know my name, my meaning, nor the treasure of my escape.” -Charles Bukowski

wifi everywhere! or, history of the black crowes

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Is it at all possible to find an independent coffee shop in downtown Kansas City that doesn’t have free wireless Internet access? Predictably, Starbucks charges for theirs, but it’s wide open just about everywhere else. If I want to support local coffeeshops, I have to contend with the lure of the Internet (or just leave the laptop at home); if I want to avoid that lure, I have to spend time with the Great Satan. So here I am at the Cup and Saucer, grading, and trying to avoid various online responsibilities.

I’m just stopping in, dear reader, to opine briefly on Atlanta’s Black Crowes. When I was a wee undergrad and local hack music writer, the Black Crowes were called Mr. Crowe’s Garden, and they were firmly part of the jangly southern bands on college radio crowd (see R.E.M., Let’s Active, the D.B.’s, and various Athens, GA: Inside/Out bands). Then they got a record deal, went into the studio, and came out a few months later with a new band name and sounding like a cross between early ’70s Rolling Stones and late ’70s Aerosmith. The cool thing to do, of course, was to lament how they had “sold out.” But I’ll let you in on a secret: I really like the Black Crowes. When you’re down in the dumps, crank up Shake Your Money Maker.

letter writing in renaissance england

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Those of you in the D.C. area might want to stop by this exhibit at the Folger:

This exhibition devotes itself to the myriad processes of letterwriting: the penning, sending, receiving, reading, circulating, copying, and saving of letters. The text of a letter provides one part of the story, while its very tangibility –the ancient folds, the grime and fingerprints deposited by the writer, deliverer, and readers, the broken seals, the ink blots, the idiosyncratic spelling, the location of a signature–tells another. An understanding of a letter’s written and unwritten social signals brings into focus a fuller, grittier, and ultimately more convincing picture of everyday life in early modern England.

(Via WaPo.)

dealing with writer’s block

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“Hack your way out of writer’s block,” at 43 Folders. I think my favorite is “Talk to a monkey – Explain what youíre really trying to say to a stuffed animal or cardboard cutout.” In general, I subscribe to the “Write for 10 minutes no matter what” technique. A good way to start the day with a strong cup of coffee.

summer institute on franklin

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This 2005 summer institute at the National Humanities Research Center looks interesting:

Benjamin Franklin: Reader, Writer, Printer
Led by Peter Stallybrass (University of Pennsylvania)
July 10-15
This seminar will focus upon Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, and in particular upon his detailed descriptions of what and how he read from when he was a child, on his material practices as a writer, on his fascination with authorship and anonymity, and on his work in every aspect of the book trade.