Critical theory, critical culture, & postmodern humanism
In a nutshell: Charles Murray’s 2003 book Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 continues to have pernicious resonance today. Ten years ago, Charles Murray, co-author of the influential 1994 book The Continue reading Murray’s Human Accomplishment ten years later
In a nutshell: W. Robert Connor’s piece on “The Shrinking Humanities” is fair and reasonable, but may mask more sinister prejudices against postmodern perspectives in the humanities. Very interesting piece by W. Robert Connor of the Teagle Foundation in Inside Continue reading Humanities: tumble dry on low?
In a nutshell: My classroom full of black, brown, East Asian, South Asian, orthodox Jewish, Muslim, female, and gay male students, very few of whom are well spoken for by the White Male Christian Subject of Culture, have a very Continue reading The End of Western Civilization
Thinking more about my humanities manifesto-in-progress. Article in the NY Times about how small farmers are creating a new business model for local agriculture. Makes me wonder: as the American small farmer goes, so goes the American non-academic humanist? Take Continue reading Notes Toward A Post-academic Humanism, 2
A corporate entity that provides salary & benefits for humanists to pursue theory & practice that speak to specialists, generalists, and the interested public alike. This is what humanists need as an alternative to the current incarnation of academia in Continue reading Notes Toward A Post-academic Humanism
In a nutshell: As we think about the transformative potential of aesthetic experience, the capacity for aesthetic self-transformation, and any pedagogy based on these convictions, we need to consider the role of the imagination as a concept once highly valued, Continue reading Revaluing the Imagination
In a nutshell: Two decades after the Culture Wars, has humanism slipped behind an Iron Curtain? Advocates of a values-free academy would have us teach the humanities minus the ongoing confrontation with freedom and justice that veritably defines the humanistic Continue reading Pedagogy & the Iron Curtain of Humanism
In a nutshell: Postmodern critical theory has undermined our belief in a unified individual subject with a core human nature that transcends social construction and historical specificity. But we need not choose between our individuality and our humanity, nor need Continue reading Humanity in a Post-human World
In a nutshell: Identity politics made the human condition unfashionable. But if we want to practice a humanistic pedagogy, we need to bring the human condition back into vogue. For their Daily Write on February 21, I asked my mythology Continue reading Bringing the Human Condition Back
In a nutshell: If literature is transformative, then as teachers of literature, what we are really trying to teach is the capacity for self-transformation. That’s why this business Gerald Graff has called “professing literature” is so damned hard, and so Continue reading Transformative Pedagogy