Because some whippersnappers can't let an old blog die quietly, I'll just make a formal announcement:
I've moved over to Iqra'i ("Sliding down the banisters of the ivory tower") for the time being. I'll start actually posting there one of these days, but for the time being you can catch insight from more intelligent traditionalist feminists.
I apologize for depleting the ranks of the Yale Political Union blogroll, but I'm sure you'll appreciate the improved product at the group blog.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Yale Daily News column, 2/7/08: I see your analytical strategizing and raise you an irrational movementarian exuberance.
(Useful background: Greasy-spoon breakfast joint gets more attention after it shuts down (blame the landlord!); students help New Haven to heart Barack Obama.)
(Useful background: Greasy-spoon breakfast joint gets more attention after it shuts down (blame the landlord!); students help New Haven to heart Barack Obama.)
Monday, January 28, 2008
Yale Daily News column, 1/24/08: Corporatist policies, embodiment as a distinction between free speech and harassment, and the moral failings of the contemporary university.
(Useful background: the Zeta Psi dustup; people complain about the use of the court system; my favorite, if unhelpful, response thus far.)
(Useful background: the Zeta Psi dustup; people complain about the use of the court system; my favorite, if unhelpful, response thus far.)
PoMoMetaBlog--Jan. 28
"If you're not postmodern, you're not paying attention."
I've been unduly pleased with this since coming up with it earlier this month, but evidence from around the Internet suggests that I'm not too far off:
IN THE POSTMODERN WORLD...
SUFFERING IS ENTERTAINMENT IS SUFFERING! I know nostalgia literally means "a pain in the past," but the decision to remedy it by offering two-hour interactive KGB interrogations--with beatings, mind you--might be a bit too literalistic about the bodily metaphor.
EVERYONE USES HYPERBOLE! AmSpecBlog, rapidly becoming my new favorite institutional blog on the right, gets a little bit shameless: McCain's refusal to look for conservative judges like Samuel Alito would be to every conservative in the country "the political equivalent of subjecting us to waterboarding." On the flip side, at least they've realized that waterboarding might not be a good thing? (Of course, the counterpart to this is the much-linked NOW press release declaring the Kennedy endorsement of Obama to be the "ultimate betrayal" of women. Then again, identity politics isn't postmodern, though maybe female hysteria used for political ends is...)
EVEN THE WHISPERED ADVICE OF COMPANIONS IS CENTRALLY SPONSORED! But I fail to share Poulos' abject terror because the art is often absolutely lovely, and the content is bland enough to be toothless. (With the exceptions of the "don't fuck your flatmate" and "don't always use Helvetica" pieces, both of which are actually quite useful as advice.)
"AMERICAN IDOL" STARS BECOME BIDEN DEMOCRATS! More seriously, the mix of mainstream, backwater, and savvy presented in this profile of Clay Aiken is striking--and says a lot about the complete meaninglessness of the term "counterculture." NOTE: My linking to this piece isn't an endorsement of any of its constituent parts ("Idol," Spamalot, or mostly-unchallenging profiles of genre-shifting stars).
I've been unduly pleased with this since coming up with it earlier this month, but evidence from around the Internet suggests that I'm not too far off:
IN THE POSTMODERN WORLD...
SUFFERING IS ENTERTAINMENT IS SUFFERING! I know nostalgia literally means "a pain in the past," but the decision to remedy it by offering two-hour interactive KGB interrogations--with beatings, mind you--might be a bit too literalistic about the bodily metaphor.
EVERYONE USES HYPERBOLE! AmSpecBlog, rapidly becoming my new favorite institutional blog on the right, gets a little bit shameless: McCain's refusal to look for conservative judges like Samuel Alito would be to every conservative in the country "the political equivalent of subjecting us to waterboarding." On the flip side, at least they've realized that waterboarding might not be a good thing? (Of course, the counterpart to this is the much-linked NOW press release declaring the Kennedy endorsement of Obama to be the "ultimate betrayal" of women. Then again, identity politics isn't postmodern, though maybe female hysteria used for political ends is...)
EVEN THE WHISPERED ADVICE OF COMPANIONS IS CENTRALLY SPONSORED! But I fail to share Poulos' abject terror because the art is often absolutely lovely, and the content is bland enough to be toothless. (With the exceptions of the "don't fuck your flatmate" and "don't always use Helvetica" pieces, both of which are actually quite useful as advice.)
"AMERICAN IDOL" STARS BECOME BIDEN DEMOCRATS! More seriously, the mix of mainstream, backwater, and savvy presented in this profile of Clay Aiken is striking--and says a lot about the complete meaninglessness of the term "counterculture." NOTE: My linking to this piece isn't an endorsement of any of its constituent parts ("Idol," Spamalot, or mostly-unchallenging profiles of genre-shifting stars).
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
"We'll hold a big tent revival in Manchester..."
The narrative that I'm still waiting to see out of the primaries: no, really, Americans just want a president who talks like a preacher.
It's a logical continuation of the Third (or Fourth, or Fifth) Great Awakening that the press seems to discover whenever it needs a cover story or an exit poll, and forget the rest of the time. It's not just a matter of burgeoning religiosity in America--it's a matter of Americans relating to each other, socially, in spiritual terms. Obama and Huckabee are "inspirational," and while a lot of it may have to do with their messages (if you go in for the whole "content" thing) it seems to me that the church-sprung oratory couldn't hurt either.
Which is really what bugs me about the fact (or at least increasingly conventional wisdom) that Hillary's ability to break down and cry won her New Hampshire. Anyone who's studied camp meetings knows that it works like this: you're alternately inspired and threatened by the preachers, until finally, ecstatically, crying with relief, you collapse liberated into the hands of the Lord. Hillary was responding to a charge Obama (and John Edwards) had made! The force of that charge to her system is what liberated her true self and her emotions! She's a textbook convert!
Not that there's anything wrong with converts--they often make the best preachers, from St. Augustine to Peter Cartwright--but not all converts can take it upon themselves to preach. Conversion isn't contagious in the way that inspiration is. If anything, Obama's victory to turn the heart of his rival should be enough to win him the nomination--or at least another year on the tent-revival circuit.
It's a logical continuation of the Third (or Fourth, or Fifth) Great Awakening that the press seems to discover whenever it needs a cover story or an exit poll, and forget the rest of the time. It's not just a matter of burgeoning religiosity in America--it's a matter of Americans relating to each other, socially, in spiritual terms. Obama and Huckabee are "inspirational," and while a lot of it may have to do with their messages (if you go in for the whole "content" thing) it seems to me that the church-sprung oratory couldn't hurt either.
Which is really what bugs me about the fact (or at least increasingly conventional wisdom) that Hillary's ability to break down and cry won her New Hampshire. Anyone who's studied camp meetings knows that it works like this: you're alternately inspired and threatened by the preachers, until finally, ecstatically, crying with relief, you collapse liberated into the hands of the Lord. Hillary was responding to a charge Obama (and John Edwards) had made! The force of that charge to her system is what liberated her true self and her emotions! She's a textbook convert!
Not that there's anything wrong with converts--they often make the best preachers, from St. Augustine to Peter Cartwright--but not all converts can take it upon themselves to preach. Conversion isn't contagious in the way that inspiration is. If anything, Obama's victory to turn the heart of his rival should be enough to win him the nomination--or at least another year on the tent-revival circuit.
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