Cliopatria Welcomes Scott McLemee ...

by Cliopatria

Cliopatria is pleased to welcome Scott McLemee as a Contributing Editor. He really needs no introduction here. Scott is a critic and essayist with a particular interest in the intellectual history of American radicalism and counterculture. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The American Prospect, Bookforum, The Common Review, The Nation, Newsday, Salon, the Village Voice, and elsewhere. He is also the editor or co-editor of two books by or about the Caribbean writer, C. L. R. James. He has been a contributing editor of In These Times and Lingua Franca, a senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and is now Essayist at Large for Inside Higher Ed, where his column,"Intellectual Affairs," appears twice a week.

But, really, the t shirt says it all:"Ingenium Vinces Cognationes." For those of you who didn't have Barbara Maurer for Latin I and II in high school, that means"Talent Trumps Connections." McLemee recalls growing up in Wills Point, Texas, (population: ca. 2500) and having been described in high school there as"a New York intellectual." So, off to Austin he went and, twice, he dropped out of the University of Texas. The last time for good. In 2004, when he received the National Book Critics Circle's Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, Scott spoke movingly of the experience of a little boy who wanted to grow up to write about books and ideas, which offered"a world more attractive," as Leon Trotsky once put it. And so he did. When I think about McLemee and the life of the mind, I am humbled. It's a great pleasure to welcome him to Cliopatria.

Via e-mail, Scott sends along this response:

Thanks to Ralph Luker for that generous introduction, which almost persuades me that I actually belong on the roll of this site's contributing editors.
If memory serves, Ralph first suggested joining Clio about a year ago. At the time, I was at the Chronicle of Higher Education, which proscribes its staff from appearing on the masthead of another publication. Earlier this year, the founders of Inside Higher Ed approached me with the chance to work a lot harder for a lot less money -- an irresistible offer, since it also included perfect freedom in deciding what to write about, and how. (An alternative title for my column,"Intellectual Affairs," might be"Pygmy Polymathy.")
In any case, the freedom to roam included the option I'm exercising now, at long last, in joining Cliopatria -- a site that has been part of my daily reading routine almost since it began. The mixture of commentary (not all of it polemical, thank goodness) with quick round-ups of links to recent articles on historical topics makes it a reliable place to turn for a quick jolt of edification and/or irritation.
The fact that so many of the frequent contributors hold political views veering to the right has never seemed to me particularly off-putting, and my great hope is that they will respond with similar indulgence to the arrival of someone who believes"tax the rich to death" is a bumper-sticker whose time has come. (And is, in fact, long overdue.) In the end, it's more interesting and instructive to listen to a thoughtful conservative than a marxisant loudmouth -- although the benefits are somewhat offset by the difficulties involved in locating the former.
In any case, I'll treat this position of" contributing editor" as something more than an honorary title by chiming in from time to time, in particular with links to items of interest. There will also be occasion to ask you, the Cliopatrianic demimonde, for your thoughts and suggestions on certain topics. And tips for possible subjects for my column are always welcome at: intellectual DOT affairs AT insidehighered DOT com

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More Comments:

Charles Schuyler - 6/15/2005

You want to say VINCIT, don't you, not VINCES? I suspect COGNATIONES in the sense used here is not idiomatic, but it is a clever quotation, nonetheless.

Jonathan Dresner - 6/14/2005

I am an unabashed, proud and devoted partisan of the discipline of history: Cliopatriot is a title I claim without hesitation. "Cliopatrician" isn't bad (though I admit that if anyone's used it before now, I'd missed it) for our membership, for history as a discipline which has standards sufficient to appeal only to a narrow, and yes elite, circle; neither, for that matter, is Cliopatriarch, though it does have that gender problem that I find myself quite unable to ignore, as much as I try.

I didn't say, or at least intend to suggest, that anyone was in favor of violence against academics, but it is out of the mainstream to focus on it.

ben wolfson - 6/14/2005

here, provided solely out of vanity.

Ralph E. Luker - 6/14/2005

Jonthan, I don't see how the two issues that you cite as examples of your own pet topics illustrate your point. If anyone is in favor of violence against academics, I don't know what "(perceived) mainstream" you are talking about; and, if anything, in academic communities, including our own, I'd guess that people opposed to gay marriage probably do a lot of self-censoring. Hugo, for instance, stands out as an interesting example of someone who is both about as far to the Left on most political charts as most Americans go, but who is outspokenly pro-life -- thus challenging the usual stereotypes of positions that are supposed to follow from a general political disposition.
On the cliopaterminology, there's been diversity of preferences from the beginning of the group and it's a healthy thing -- unlikely to be resolved or consensed so long as we are a healthy group. Cliopatriarchs, Cliomatriarchs, Cliopatricians, Cliopatriots -- it's all good. I suppose it depends, again, on one's own "issues" -- Cliopatriarchs might seem sexist; but then Cliopatriots might seem rather soft on nationalisms and Cliopatricians (which I rather like) might seem classist or elitist.

Caleb McDaniel - 6/14/2005

Glad to have Scott on board.

Caleb McDaniel - 6/14/2005

Not a lot to add, although I was also surprised to hear that "so many" of the Cliopatriots veer to the right. I agree with Ralph that Right and Left are blunt terms these days, and besides, relative to so many blogs, how many is so many? And where can I get one of those bumper stickers, Scott?

But I'll throw in that I like "Cliopatriots," Jonathan. It seems closer to the meaning of "patria" as we intend it than "patriarch," although its interesting that those words are so etymologically related.

Jonathan Dresner - 6/14/2005

I do think that volume and passion are too frequently conflated: If we actually polled the Cliopatriots I think we'd find very strong liberalism, possibly even substantial leftism, as the median position. If we were to break it down by topics -- politics, economics, social, cultural -- I suspect that the matter would be substantially complicated, however, and that you'd also find that we are most often vocal where our views are out of the (perceived) mainstream, because that's when something most needs saying: most of us have one or more obsessive issues (for me, it's gay marriage and violence against academics, among others) on which we speak frequently because we feel outspoken on the matter.

Ralph E. Luker - 6/13/2005

Scott's comments about political proclivities at Cliopatria do underscore for me the relativity of such judgments. At Chapati Mystery, Sepoy observes that, after 9/11, we need to rethink all judgments about What's Right and What's Left. For my part, I've described myself for many years as a proud member of the Republican Left, as if that were not an oxymoron. For many of my fellow Republicans, I fall well outside the camp. And certainly a number of Cliopatriarchs would make Eugene V. Debs or Norman Thomas look like reactionaries.