Studying for exams. Lots of big words.
“At the beginning of the period of our concern, the reigning narrative epistemology involves a dependence on received authorities and a priori traditions; I will call this posture “romance idealism.” In the seventeenth century it is challenged and refuted by an empirical epistemology that derives from many sources, and this I will call “naïve empiricism.” But this negation of romance, having embarked on a journey for which it has no maps, at certain points loses its way. And it becomes vulnerable, in turn, to a countercritique that has been generated by its own over-enthusiasm. I will call this countercritique “extreme skepticism.” In refuting its empiricist progenitor, I will argue, extreme skepticism inevitably recapitulates some features of the romance idealism which it is equally committed to opposing. For questions of virtue, the terms alter, but the two-stage pattern of reversal is very much the same as for questions of truth. We begin with a relatively stratified social order supported by a reigning world view that I will call “aristocratic ideology.” Spurred by social change, this ideology is attacked and subverted by its prime antagonist, “progressive ideology.” But at a certain point, progressive ideology gives birth to its own critique, which is both more radical than itself, and harks back to the common, aristocratic enemy. I will call this countercritique “conservative ideology.” . . . The novel’s ability to incorporate both Richardson and Fielding “is the clearest sign of the new genre’s triumph as an explanatory and problem-solving mode, its powerful adaptability in mediating questions of truth and virtue from opposed points of view” (21).
Michael McKeon, The Origins of the English Novel. Sigh.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Oh. Mygod.
I don't know how I missed this before, someone sent it out to the department listserv and I didn't read it until today. (Probably you've all seen it already and I'm behind on the times as usual!).
The first part of this post I'm stealing from the blog "virtualpolitik" (http://virtualpolitik.blogspot.com/). Here we go:
"Now, thanks Professor Howard Winant of the Center for New Racial Studies, University of California faculty are enjoying the "poetry" of U.C. President Mark Yudof in a widely disseminated e-mail based on the rhetorically regrettable "Big Man on Campus" interview of Yudof in the New York Times."
I will follow up shortly with the "rhetorically regrettable" interview. To clarify, the following "found poem" is, for real, taken almost verbatim from an interview with the PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
Poem (author unknown):
POETIC VARIATIONS (AND EDITING) OF THE RECENT MARK YUDOF INTERVIEW
And education?
Let me ponder that
The shine is off of it
It’s really a question of being crowded out
by other priorities
I do not
This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country
Higher education is being squeezed out
It’s systemic
We have an aging population nationally
We have a lot of concern, as we should, with health care.
The faculty said furlough sounds more temporary
Than salary cut
And being president of the University of California is like being
Manager of a cemetery
there are many people under you, but no one is listening.
Look, I’m from West Philadelphia
My dad was an electrician
It wasn’t part of what we did
When I was growing up we didn’t debate
I listen to them
I listen to dead people
How did you get into education?
Are you in education?
I don't know
It’s all an accident
The stories of my compensation are greatly exaggerated
I’m there to— some of the things I do very well
I smile
I shake hands
I tell jokes
Okay, and below I'm including the text of the actual New York Times interview. (For better formatting, you can read at the Times website: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27fob-q4-t.html?_r=2).
September 27, 2009
Questions for Mark Yudof
Big Man on Campus
By DEBORAH SOLOMON
As president of the University of California, the most prestigious of the state-university systems, you have proposed that in-state tuition be jacked up to more than $10,000, from $7,788. Are you pricing education beyond the reach of most students?
In 2009, U.C. adopted the Blue and Gold Program, guaranteeing that no student with a family income below $60,000 would pay any fees, and this guarantee will continue in 2010. That’s the short answer.
U.C. is facing a budget shortfall of at least $753 million, largely because of cuts in state financing. Do you blame Governor Schwarzenegger for your troubles?
I do not. This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country. Higher education is being squeezed out. It’s systemic. We have an aging population nationally. We have a lot of concern, as we should, with health care.
And education?
The shine is off of it. It’s really a question of being crowded out by other priorities.
Already professors on all 10 U.C. campuses are taking required “furloughs,” to use a buzzword.
Let me tell you why we used it. The faculty said “furlough” sounds more temporary than “salary cut,” and being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening. I listen to them.
The word “furlough,” I recently read, comes from the Dutch word “verlof,” which means permission, as in soldiers’ getting permission to take a few days off. How has it come to be a euphemism for salary cuts?
Look, I’m from West Philadelphia. My dad was an electrician. We didn’t look up stuff like this. It wasn’t part of what we did. When I was growing up we didn’t debate the finer points of what the word “furlough” meant.
How did you get into education?
I don’t know. It’s all an accident. I thought I’d go work for a law firm.
Some people feel you could close the U.C. budget gap by cutting administrative salaries, including your own.
The stories of my compensation are greatly exaggerated.
When you began your job last year, your annual compensation was reportedly $828,000.
It actually was $600,000 until I cut my pay by $60,000. So my salary is $540,000, but it gets amplified because people say, “You have a pension plan.”
What about your housing allowance? How much is the rent on your home in Oakland?
It’s about $10,000 a month.
Does U.C. pay for that on top of your salary?
Yes, and the reason they do that is because they have a president’s house, it needed $8 million of repairs and I decided that was not the way to go. Why the heck would I ever authorize $8 million for a house I didn’t want to live in anyhow?
Why can’t you have architecture students repair the house for course credit?
Let me ponder that.
Do you raise a lot of income from private donations?
We don’t do it in the office of the president. The focus is campus by campus: Santa Cruz or U.C.L.A. or Berkeley or San Diego, Davis. They have their own development offices, and I’m there to — some of the things I do very well. I smile, I shake hands, I tell jokes.
Why can’t you raise money, too?
I’m out there hustling, but I go where the chancellors invite me. Otherwise they get upset.
What about Hollywood people? Do they just give to U.C.L.A. at the expense of the other campuses?
I don’t know where they give. I’ve only met a few. I met Marg Helgenberger from “C.S.I.” at a dinner for Nobel laureates. I don’t know how either one of us got invited, but I enjoyed that, sure.
What do you think of the idea that no administrator at a state university needs to earn more than the president of the United States, $400,000?
Will you throw in Air Force One and the White House?
I don't know how I missed this before, someone sent it out to the department listserv and I didn't read it until today. (Probably you've all seen it already and I'm behind on the times as usual!).
The first part of this post I'm stealing from the blog "virtualpolitik" (http://virtualpolitik.blogspot.com/). Here we go:
"Now, thanks Professor Howard Winant of the Center for New Racial Studies, University of California faculty are enjoying the "poetry" of U.C. President Mark Yudof in a widely disseminated e-mail based on the rhetorically regrettable "Big Man on Campus" interview of Yudof in the New York Times."
I will follow up shortly with the "rhetorically regrettable" interview. To clarify, the following "found poem" is, for real, taken almost verbatim from an interview with the PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
Poem (author unknown):
POETIC VARIATIONS (AND EDITING) OF THE RECENT MARK YUDOF INTERVIEW
And education?
Let me ponder that
The shine is off of it
It’s really a question of being crowded out
by other priorities
I do not
This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country
Higher education is being squeezed out
It’s systemic
We have an aging population nationally
We have a lot of concern, as we should, with health care.
The faculty said furlough sounds more temporary
Than salary cut
And being president of the University of California is like being
Manager of a cemetery
there are many people under you, but no one is listening.
Look, I’m from West Philadelphia
My dad was an electrician
It wasn’t part of what we did
When I was growing up we didn’t debate
I listen to them
I listen to dead people
How did you get into education?
Are you in education?
I don't know
It’s all an accident
The stories of my compensation are greatly exaggerated
I’m there to— some of the things I do very well
I smile
I shake hands
I tell jokes
Okay, and below I'm including the text of the actual New York Times interview. (For better formatting, you can read at the Times website: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27fob-q4-t.html?_r=2).
September 27, 2009
Questions for Mark Yudof
Big Man on Campus
By DEBORAH SOLOMON
As president of the University of California, the most prestigious of the state-university systems, you have proposed that in-state tuition be jacked up to more than $10,000, from $7,788. Are you pricing education beyond the reach of most students?
In 2009, U.C. adopted the Blue and Gold Program, guaranteeing that no student with a family income below $60,000 would pay any fees, and this guarantee will continue in 2010. That’s the short answer.
U.C. is facing a budget shortfall of at least $753 million, largely because of cuts in state financing. Do you blame Governor Schwarzenegger for your troubles?
I do not. This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country. Higher education is being squeezed out. It’s systemic. We have an aging population nationally. We have a lot of concern, as we should, with health care.
And education?
The shine is off of it. It’s really a question of being crowded out by other priorities.
Already professors on all 10 U.C. campuses are taking required “furloughs,” to use a buzzword.
Let me tell you why we used it. The faculty said “furlough” sounds more temporary than “salary cut,” and being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening. I listen to them.
The word “furlough,” I recently read, comes from the Dutch word “verlof,” which means permission, as in soldiers’ getting permission to take a few days off. How has it come to be a euphemism for salary cuts?
Look, I’m from West Philadelphia. My dad was an electrician. We didn’t look up stuff like this. It wasn’t part of what we did. When I was growing up we didn’t debate the finer points of what the word “furlough” meant.
How did you get into education?
I don’t know. It’s all an accident. I thought I’d go work for a law firm.
Some people feel you could close the U.C. budget gap by cutting administrative salaries, including your own.
The stories of my compensation are greatly exaggerated.
When you began your job last year, your annual compensation was reportedly $828,000.
It actually was $600,000 until I cut my pay by $60,000. So my salary is $540,000, but it gets amplified because people say, “You have a pension plan.”
What about your housing allowance? How much is the rent on your home in Oakland?
It’s about $10,000 a month.
Does U.C. pay for that on top of your salary?
Yes, and the reason they do that is because they have a president’s house, it needed $8 million of repairs and I decided that was not the way to go. Why the heck would I ever authorize $8 million for a house I didn’t want to live in anyhow?
Why can’t you have architecture students repair the house for course credit?
Let me ponder that.
Do you raise a lot of income from private donations?
We don’t do it in the office of the president. The focus is campus by campus: Santa Cruz or U.C.L.A. or Berkeley or San Diego, Davis. They have their own development offices, and I’m there to — some of the things I do very well. I smile, I shake hands, I tell jokes.
Why can’t you raise money, too?
I’m out there hustling, but I go where the chancellors invite me. Otherwise they get upset.
What about Hollywood people? Do they just give to U.C.L.A. at the expense of the other campuses?
I don’t know where they give. I’ve only met a few. I met Marg Helgenberger from “C.S.I.” at a dinner for Nobel laureates. I don’t know how either one of us got invited, but I enjoyed that, sure.
What do you think of the idea that no administrator at a state university needs to earn more than the president of the United States, $400,000?
Will you throw in Air Force One and the White House?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
First: Masquerade
I'm trying to stop reading Terry Castle's Masquerade and Civilization, mainly because I realized that if I really read every word of everything on my lists I'm not going to finish. Unless I find my super-speed-boost-mario-cart version of my usual manner of reading (something like how fast I reread Harry Potter). But I can't *stop* because it's, well, a masquerade! Even from the Preface it's clearly kind of amazing:
"This book aims at two things: to re-create the historical phenomenon of the English masquerade and to outline its literary history, particularly in fiction, roughly between 1720 and 1790."
Re-create the masquerade? When I read this I was tired. I had finally just finished Imagining the Penitentiary. I laughed really hard. And I'm still waiting for the masquerade to pop out of the book with a lavish and chaotic parade of phantasmic identities led by Count Heidegger (yes! a real person!). About every other page my mind wanders into some other manifestation of Masquerade in my life, e.g., how to put together my yet-to-be-created Phedre costume if the person who said she'd make my dress never comes back from Venice (carnival!), or about my novel that I won't tell you about just like everyone else's novel they won't tell you about (you know), because I think there's a masquerade at the beginning and I just never fully realized what it was.
Also! I'm going to have to put together a syllabus for the NEXT English class I want to teach, before I've hardly started Poetry of Death, and I think it could be fun to do Drama of Carnivalesque as an antidote, so if anyone has any good ideas (I'm terrible with drama!) holler out or whatnot.
Along the lines of blog-reader-requests, I was thinking of including a creepy/hokey very Gothic poem around Halloween, but I can't think of any offhand (there MUST be some! will clear Gothic/Halloweeny imagery), so if one comes to mind, let me know.
Aaand now. . . update on the slow regurgitation of MTV nonsense. Taylor Swift is adorable, and even possibly became more adorable when I read the US Weekly "article" about what happened at the awards (the picture of her biting her lip was soooo endearing). So here is her video (can I say again how much I adore her?).
(n.b. the bitchy girlfriend CLEARLY is suffering from an excess of geometric cutouts).
I'm trying to stop reading Terry Castle's Masquerade and Civilization, mainly because I realized that if I really read every word of everything on my lists I'm not going to finish. Unless I find my super-speed-boost-mario-cart version of my usual manner of reading (something like how fast I reread Harry Potter). But I can't *stop* because it's, well, a masquerade! Even from the Preface it's clearly kind of amazing:
"This book aims at two things: to re-create the historical phenomenon of the English masquerade and to outline its literary history, particularly in fiction, roughly between 1720 and 1790."
Re-create the masquerade? When I read this I was tired. I had finally just finished Imagining the Penitentiary. I laughed really hard. And I'm still waiting for the masquerade to pop out of the book with a lavish and chaotic parade of phantasmic identities led by Count Heidegger (yes! a real person!). About every other page my mind wanders into some other manifestation of Masquerade in my life, e.g., how to put together my yet-to-be-created Phedre costume if the person who said she'd make my dress never comes back from Venice (carnival!), or about my novel that I won't tell you about just like everyone else's novel they won't tell you about (you know), because I think there's a masquerade at the beginning and I just never fully realized what it was.
Also! I'm going to have to put together a syllabus for the NEXT English class I want to teach, before I've hardly started Poetry of Death, and I think it could be fun to do Drama of Carnivalesque as an antidote, so if anyone has any good ideas (I'm terrible with drama!) holler out or whatnot.
Along the lines of blog-reader-requests, I was thinking of including a creepy/hokey very Gothic poem around Halloween, but I can't think of any offhand (there MUST be some! will clear Gothic/Halloweeny imagery), so if one comes to mind, let me know.
Aaand now. . . update on the slow regurgitation of MTV nonsense. Taylor Swift is adorable, and even possibly became more adorable when I read the US Weekly "article" about what happened at the awards (the picture of her biting her lip was soooo endearing). So here is her video (can I say again how much I adore her?).
(n.b. the bitchy girlfriend CLEARLY is suffering from an excess of geometric cutouts).
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Craziness! I will follow up more with my belated comments on the mtv music awards or whatever they're called later (I've never actually watched these on TV, but eventually they filter out to even me).
Lady Gaga - "Paparazzi (Live)"
Lady Gaga - "Paparazzi (Live)"
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Saturday, September 05, 2009
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