For Your Reading Pleasure

By Greg—01/19/2008

With an eye on Hillary Clinton, Deborah Cameron identifies some of the historical difficulties that face women politicians as they seek power.
Following Stanley Fish, Mark Liberman measures the humanities and finds that they are probably not big enough to ride the roller coaster. FWIW, the person charged with policing the humanities in my department has decided they are worth little more than the teaching of classical rhetoric or identity, but not, say, the rhetoric of identity. The limitations s/he places on the field come from conservative thought and, I still suspect, laziness.
Don’t you know that Erika Hayasaki, the reporter who wrote this Los Angeles Times illumination of controversy in the scrapbooking world, discovered the story because she is a scrapbooker herself? (Great story, too.)
Noam Scheiber’s comparison of Barack Obama’s campaign to Howard Dean’s is informative.
“The celebrity is a special public,” the Scientologist said. “We’ve got to help them.”
Do you think I should apply?
Wallbuilders has released a presidential voter’s guide, in case you’re interested. It’s reductive and not particularly accurate, of course.

Comments

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by greg—Jan 19, 03:14 PM

On the Liberman/Stanley Fish article —

I take the point that the humanities have outlived their original public justifications, and I admit that I’m not sure exactly what new justifications might look like. But, it seems to me, that shouldn’t preclude us from coming up with some that are more substantial than “Boy this poem is pretty!” which is about all Liberman and Fish seem willing to grant them.

I’m not exactly sure what qualifies as a humanities discipline these days because there is so much overlap here, but a discipline like history certainly doesn’t have to resort to weak astheticist arguments to support its case. And I think that the same might be said for other humanities projects. I’ll have to think a bit more to offer a public justification of my discipline (since it seems to be the chief representative of humanities here), but I’ll get back to that.

by shaun—Jan 22, 11:01 AM

I didn’t mean to leave your comment hanging, Shaun. I actually don’t think aetheticist arguments are weak justifications for the liberal arts, though I do think they are immaterial arguments, which some people would see as weak.

Meanwhile, Inside Higher Ed reports on a seminar that discussed greater professionalization of the liberal arts, which if I read correctly, is largely the development of a skills-based curriculum and/or the strengthening of teacher education. I’m not sure what I think about it.

by greg—Jan 26, 09:04 AM

No problem, Greg. Some comments take; some don’t.

Arguments, I suppose, are often weak or strong relative to their audiences.

by shaun—Jan 26, 09:57 AM

Ha! Wallbuilders experiences blowback:

Last night, nearly two dozen states made their voice heard in the presidential primaries. To help equip Christian voters to fulfill their role during the election season, WallBuilders produced a Voters’ Guide that was distributed to millions of homes.

That Voters’ Guide proved to be a great threat to anti-Biblical secularists. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State therefore filed an official complaint requesting that the IRS investigate both WallBuilders and the American Family Association (headed by Don Wildmon) for distributing that Voters’ Guide.

We have absolutely no intention of backing down or altering our message. We will not be intimidated. Benjamin Franklin observed, “Make yourself sheep, and the wolves will eat you,” and Thomas Jefferson wisely advised, “In matters of principle, stand like a rock!” We will! We will not be intimidated from exercising our constitutional rights and encouraging other Christians to do so.

In fact, please urge your friends and family in states that have not yet voted to download the Voters’ Guide (click here) and distribute it. Because the real intent of the secularists is to keep Christians out of the civil arena, the Rev. Barry Lynn (head of Americans United), warned that “Any church that distributes these biased guides is risking its tax exemption and casting aside its integrity.” He is dead wrong! The Voters’ Guide was reviewed by numerous constitutional attorneys before we released it. Show him that Christians will not be silenced and that his threats will only result in more aggressive action from Christians as we take our stand as salt and light in the civil arena!

Some often marvel that the head of such a secularist group as AU goes by the title of “Reverend,” yet Barry Lynn is indeed an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (the same denomination of which Barack Obama is a member) – considered the most liberal (and fastest declining) of all American denominations.

The UCC was the first denomination to ordain an openly gay minister (way back in the early 1970s) and to call for recognition of homosexual marriages; and over 200 of its churches are led by openly homosexual ministers. The UCC is also a strong advocate of abortion and openly endorsed abortion a full two years before the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court abortion decision in 1973. They even opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions.

The UCC does not accept fixed absolutes from the Bible, but instead believes that the Bible should be defined by the current culture and context. You can certainly understand why individuals with this worldview would not want Christians to vote Biblically.

Thus far throughout the primaries, Christian turnout has been high. Let’s keep it that way! Encourage your friends, family, and associates to remain involved!

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of moral crisis,
maintain their neutrality.” Dante, The Inferno (circa 1315 A.D.)

by greg—Feb 6, 04:23 PM

Hermits Rock