Friday Notes
Herr Professor Doktor Boethius P. von Kornckrake, who has the Klaus Meine Chair of Medieval Semiotics at the Institut für Europäische Spielwissenschaft und Freizeitforschung in Bitterfeld, Germany, has joined the history blogosphere at Kornckrake! Although his 15 books are out of print, Kornckrake is a close friend of Manolo and wrote the introduction to his The Consolation of The Shoes.
The new Common-Place is up! Its articles focus on the theme of"Revolution in Print: Graphics in Nineteenth Century America."
Carsten A. Holtz,"Have China Scholars All Been Bought?" Far Eastern Economic Review, April, argues that our need for information from and cooperation from within contemporary China ultimately compromises the results of all inquiry. Thanks to Oscar Chamberlain for the tip.
Dana Cook,"Deadeye Kurt," Salon, 12 April, has brief reminiscences of the late Kurt Vonnegut by Andre Dubus, Peter Fonda, Isaac Asimov, Peter Gzowski, Andy Warhol, Alfred Kazin, and Martin Amis. Also at Salon, Vonnegut reads from his Slaughterhouse Five and Dave Eggers has a reprise on"Kurt's Canon." At Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, Ed Darrell also remembers:
Billy Pilgrim came unstuck in time, but was stuck forever with history, by history, remembering history in some cases even before it happened. Billy Pilgrim knew Santayana and Santayana's ghost at the same time. Pilgrim, and Vonnegut, appeared to understand how hopeless life can be, but found reason to plod on anyway. There is hope at the bottom of Vonnegut's work, or the hope that hope might be found just around the corner.
Johannah S. Cornblatt and Alexandra Hiatt,"Professors Turn Down Requiring History," Harvard Crimson, 11 April, reports that Harvard's FAS rejected -- by a vote of 88 to 68 --a history requirement in the new Gen Ed proposal. Thanks to Dale Light for the tip.
Patricia Cohen,"A Bitter Spat Over Tenure, Israel, and Ideas," NYT, 12 April, is an update on the battle between Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein.