The best stomachs are not those which reject all foods

Bust of V. Woolf

This American Scholar essay by an English prof at U. Virginia is right up our alley this week. Like the hoaxsters we’re reading for Thursday, he suggests the spirit of critique and deconstruction in academia may have been taken too far in some cases. Check it out: Mark Edmundson, “Teach What You Love.”

Then if you find that interesting but want an even more esoteric and thorough critique of critique, check out this essay by one of the smartest living people on earth: Bruno Latour, “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.”

Both are calling for a positive affirmation of what we love and cherish as students and humanists.

Imagining as hard as you can

Apropos Anderson’s characterization of nations as “imagined communities,” take a look at this map. All the made up stories of today’s European countries as containers for timeless nations is given the lie in three minutes 24 seconds.

Inventors’ credits and cultural chauvinism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEGQUgWBQL4&feature=youtu.be

A student reminded me of this old School House Rock song. I’m sure I haven’t heard it since I was a kid, when it was still on Saturday morning broadcast TV, but it came right back to me! And here I’ve been making fun of other people for being nostalgic. Anyway, watching this now, I see connections to our discussions of national identity, public school curricula, historical revisionism, and more. I suspect a remake today would follow a rather different script. Still makes me sort of nostalgic, though.