Posts Tagged ‘Pledge of Allegiance’
Tuesday Links, So Many
Historicizing the concept of the inevitable in literature presents many challenges. For inevitability is itself a theory of historical agency, and an adequate critical account must confront inevitability’s claims without simply falling back on conventional notions of freedom, originality, or creative expression. Indeed, the inevitable is not merely a discourse to be cataloged by positivist historiography; it names a threat to any attempt at making humanity the author of its own experience. In its antique versions, women and men chalked their situation up to fate and diagnosed their historical condition through prophecy. In the late medieval era, more sophisticated but equally deterministic accounts of humanity’s relationship to historical change came into circulation, such as Calvinist predestination, fatalism, modern compatibilism, probabilism, and the acceptance of political economy as a science. Eventually, Charles Darwin’s natural history posited the inevitability of extinction in conditions of scarcity. The politicization of inevitability and conflicting visions of civilizational collapse followed, with communism and capitalism each decrying the other as a doomed system to be overcome. Friedrich Nietzsche’s eternal return recast inevitability as the nonlinear recurrence of intensifying crises. Walter Benjamin wrote of an angel of history who is condemned to look back on the wreckage of civilization. Today, in the wake of both historicopolitical optimism and existential pessimism, notions of the Anthropocene present a fatal paradox: the effects of human industry have set in motion a geological transformation that modern civilization might well not survive. The concept of the inevitable spins these discourses into a common thread, as so many attempts to diagnose the fundamental problem of human agency’s internal limits as expressed in time, along with whatever consolatory freedoms we might draw from our constraints.
* It is easy for left academics to be seduced by a rhetoric of public consumption for our work, since most of us see theory and practice as intermingled. But the American case should stand as warning for British academics. For many years, Usonian scholars chased the mirage of being “public intellectuals”. Few realized, however, that this means depending on their institution to protect them from the onslaught of a rabid conservative media machine. When the dogs of reaction barked in the culture wars, though, American deans slunk away, fearing damage to their own managerial careers. Progressive scholars without the protective benefit of a strong Left were abandoned to fend for themselves against unfair odds, since the spectacular “public sphere” is never a level playing ground in the age of Fox News.
* The New York Times Confirms Academic Stereotypes: Two months of opinion essays on higher education.
* A Medievalist on Savage Love. Hi, Matt!
* “2015 is my 25th year of adjunct teaching.” Oh, oh no.
* Complaint Claims University Where Student Was Killed Failed To Act On Relentless Yik Yak Threats. Horrifying story on every level.
* Another moral panic against a left-wing academic. Six more weeks of winter.
* The University of California, Santa Cruz, was established in 1965 and has long been known for its radicalism. But officials’ reaction to a recent protest against tuition hikes suggests that times have changed.
* The rise of “mama.” Interesting to see something we didn’t even know we were doing laid out like this.
* Alberta Loses Its Goddamn Mind for the Fourth Time: A Guide for the Perplexed.
* The End of Labour. Labour, Pasokified. The University after Conservative Victory.
* Baby kangaroo, goats stolen from Wisconsin zoo.
* For what it’s worth I think the latest big Hersh story is probably mostly garbage.
* Report: Defense Dept. paid NFL millions of taxpayer dollars to salute troops. Would you like to know more?
* The University of Nevada, Reno, a land grant research university, is recruiting for a Coordinator, Innovation and Transformation. This could be the most buzzwordy, administrative-bloaty job ad of all time. It gets better/worse.
* Are we reading and watching Game of Thrones wrong?
* Apples for the Teacher, Teacher is an Apple.
* After 46 years of playing Big Bird, Caroll Spinney has some great stories.
* The Joss Whedon Avengers 2 podcast.
* Marvel accidentally made a great female superhero, and now they have no clue what to do with her.
* Judge Dismisses Nebraska Woman’s Lawsuit Against All Homosexuals.
* Daily Express And Mail Celebrate The End Of Human Rights, A Horrified Twitter Despairs.
* The US payday loans crisis: borrow $100 to make ends meet, owe 36 times that sum.
* New York and the slave trade.
* Headlines from the nightmare future. And again. And again.
* How $45 worth of drugs landed a Baltimore man 20 years in prison.
* The most senior Baltimore police officer charged over the death of Freddie Gray used his position to order the arrest of a man as part of a personal dispute just two weeks before the fatal incident, prompting an internal inquiry by Baltimore police department.
* The mathematically proven winning strategy for 14 of the most popular games.
* The ghetto was a deliberate policy invention, and investing in a path out of it would have been completely contrary to the point of creating it.
* “I think we’re ready for capitalism, which made this country so great,” he said. “Public radio is ready for capitalism.”
* How Marvel Is Killing the Popcorn Movie.
* Berkeley to Stop Adding Lecture Videos to YouTube, Citing Budget Cuts.
* How to Talk to Your Child’s Wary Professors.
* Don’t let the police teach your kid a lesson.
* Man Banned From Airline Over Frankly Hilarious Pinocchio Tattoo.
* An Interview with the Publisher of a Magazine Printed Using HIV-Positive Blood.
* In the Suburbs of Amaurotum: Fantasy, Utopia, and Literary Cartography.
* Why cloth diapers might not be the greener choice, after all. I’ll believe anything on this subject to be honest.
* Dictionary of Regional American English funded through summer 2016.
* People Have Misconceptions About Miscarriage, And That Can Hurt.
* “She’s likely to be in her twenties or thirties, middle-class, probably married, probably Christian, probably average intelligence,” Harrison said. “I just described, you know, your next-door neighbor.”
* Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal forever.
* The Pope just gave me the thumbs up.
* The arc of history is long, but.
* Mother Still Searching For Preschool That Focuses Exclusively On Her Son.
* Great TNG prehistory from David Gerrold on this Mission Log supplemental.
* Kim Stanley Robinson explains his great new novel, Aurora.
* Bigfoot Truthers Turn On Their Leaders.
* Four Myths About the “Freelancer Class.”
* The best way to nab your dream job out of college? Be born rich.
* And another great list of words that can’t be easily translated.
Gerry Canavan 