Noted Here and There ...

by Cliopatria

To Pull a Yalie's Nose: Do not take Geography by Oxblog. I've previously called its attention to the fact that the University of Southern Mississippi is not in the Delta. Now, we are obliged to point out to the Yale/Oxford crowd that there is no Rhea County, Georgia. Georgia has its share of madness without accepting responsibility for Tennessee's. But, as I said, if you're managing a world economy, democratizing the Middle East, and writing dissertations in arcana, the South just sort of all runs together down there.

Readers of Cliopatria occasionally call our attention to other matters in comments at our posts. If we don't then post what they've said, it doesn't get the attention it may deserve.

USM: Robert Campbell calls attention to his long post at Liberty & Power indicating that lawyers appear to have negotiated a settlement in the struggle at the University of Southern Mississippi. Its results may be known later today. The news appears to be good for Professors Glamser and Stringer.

Oppenheimer: When I reported on Berkeley's conference about J. Robert Oppenheimer last weekend, Brooklyn College's Jerry Sternstein called our attention to these new documents which have surfaced on the question of whether Oppenheimer had been a member of the Communist Party. I was remiss in not posting an update calling attention to the site.
Update: See also Eugene Volokh on the problem of false analogies in relation to the Oppenheimer case.

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David Lion Salmanson - 5/1/2004

I hate urban provincials. Hate, hate, hate. But at the same time, I try to be as generous to them as to the small town folks I research, many of whom have never left their state or met a Jewish person besides me or been on a plane. At the same time, those folks know they are provincial whereas the New Yawker (can we added Texans to this list? Particularly Dallas/Ft. Worthians?) thinks they've been there, done that.

My friend Mike coined the term urban provincials to refer specifically to some out of towners visiting his home town of Williamsport PA who adopted Southern accents trying to mock the locals. Now Williamsport may be hick, but it ain't Southern, regardless of what they say Pennsy is like between Pittsburgh and Philly. Urban Provincials, maybe David Brooks can not research about them and then right a catchy bestseller using our insights, without credit natch.

Name Removed at Poster's Request - 5/1/2004

My favorites are the people who grow up in affluent, highly educated communities, who manage their lives so they live only in universitytowns, in affluent, educated communities, or in urban or rural ghettoes of people like themselves. I've heard such people insist that people like themselves are the majority and those closer to working class are the minority.

Richard Henry Morgan - 4/30/2004

Yeah, must have had baseball on my mind ... or beisbol, as they say in Little Havana. I once taught a school in an urban ghetto, with not one white student in the school. I asked my students to estimate the percentage of blacks in the US, and I think the average came out to between 70% and 80% of the US population. Understandable, given the limited experiences of my students, but I didn't find them any worse than a room full of writers for the New Yorker.

I also once met a thorough (and I mean, thorough) WASP living in Manhattan who said he had never been over to the West Side -- I think I caught a bit of pride in the statement. Amazing.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/30/2004

It's true, it's true, but they are found almost everywhere. I once met a guy in Providence, who had never seen the Atlantic Ocean and had no sense that there was _anything_ on the other side of it. I had students at Lincoln from Philly and, for the life of me, their world really was bound by about six square blocks in the city. Meeting other students at Lincoln from a variety of African and Caribbean nations was a very strange experience for them.

David Lion Salmanson - 4/30/2004

Richard,
Did you mean Philly? The Phillies are the baseball team, note the spelling correctly changes the y to ie for pluralization. But the city itself is shortened to Philly as in "Yo, I may not know squat about da Sout' but I know dat Sout' Philly ain't Sout' Boston. And I know dat at neither of none of dose other places can you get a good cheesesteak wit' wiz or wit provolone. Now get off my block before the ghost of Frank Rizzo finds where you at."

My friend Mike Niklaus coined a term that describes the phenomenon your speaking of quite well. He calls such people "urban provincials." I think it nicely captures the type of person who never leaves Manhattan island much less the Northeast quite well.

Richard Henry Morgan - 4/30/2004

I'm reminded of Michiko Kakutani's reaction in her review of Peter Taylor's A Summons to Memphis: just how different can two southern cities really be? I don't think she would have trouble distinguishing Boston from, say, New York, or even Phillie, but in some circles, anything beyond one's own experience dissolves into a great mass -- in this case, "southern city". There is nobody quite as provincial as the urban aesthete.

Michael C Tinkler - 4/30/2004

In defense of people with broad horizons, I once asked a graduate school colleague if he knew the name of every registered voter in Butts County between 1850 and 1860 (his dissertation period). He admitted he did.

Still, I'm from 2 counties south of Rhea, so I find it impossible to believe that people don't know that the Monkey Trial, which was the inescapable comparison in all the early media coverage, was in Tennessee. *sigh*