Noted Here and There ...
At Historiblogography, Sameer puts us in touch with the conversation that begins with Robert Fisk,"Let Us Rebel Against Poisonous Academics and Their Preposterous Claptrap of Exclusion," Independent, 14 May, and continues with Sharon Howard,"Academics and Their Big Words," Early Modern Notes, 14 May. (Don't miss the discussion at Early Modern Notes or Margaret Soltan's comments at University Diaries.) Sameer reminds us of Judith Butler's prize-winning entry in the 1998 Bad Writing Contest. Can good writing absorb and vindicate specialized jargon?
Richard T. De George,"Purely Academic: Even Professors Misinterpret This Freedom," Washington Post, 15 May. Like David Beito, KC Johnson, and me, the University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas argues that threats to academic freedom come from both outside and inside the academic community. Thanks to Juan Non-Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy for the heads up. By the way, Sherman Dorn notes that he was about to sign up with his institution's WordPress blog site, before reading its user agreement that"we couldn't publish anything that was sexist, racist or otherwise ‘offensive.'" Obviously, most of us aren't going to be intentionally offensive, but putting decisions about what is and what is not offensive in someone else's hands is offensive. Sherman is at a public institution and, if I'm not mistaken, the legal case against such a user agreement in a public institution is quite clear. FIRE need only call Sherman's institution and read it the riot act.
We have been having entirely too much fun with this test. The results are not yet in from some of the outlying provinces, but Jon Dresner rightly suggests that the Cliopatriarchs are almost certain to be divided between the"revisionist historians" and the"theory sluts." Still, I worry about how many sluts there must be in a perfectly baked College of Cliopatriarchs. And, if that weren't scandal enough, some of my colleagues have been plotting an academic murder mystery in the college library. Eb at No Great Matter claims real life expertise. I suppose we'll have to put someone in charge of the Holy Office for the Interpretation of Behavioral and Cognitive Dissonance.
Finally, look what my man, Mr. Sun!, found: Cool French Comics. It is an amazing site. There's a timeline, tracing French fantasy since 1428 C.E. and a huge trove of French comic literature reproduced on-line.