Better and Better
29/01/09 15:11
“If there is one
thing Mr. Obama has not gotten around to changing, it
is the Oval Office décor.
When Mr. Bush moved in, he exercised his presidential decorating prerogatives and asked his wife, Laura, to supervise the design of a new rug. Mr. Bush loved to regale visitors with the story of the rug, whose sunburst design, he liked to say, was intended to evoke a feeling of optimism.
The rug is still there, as are the presidential portraits Mr. Bush selected — one of Washington, one of Lincoln — and a collection of decorative green and white plates. During a meeting last week with retired military officials, before he signed an executive order shutting down the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mr. Obama surveyed his new environs with a critical eye.
“He looked around,” said one of his guests, retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, “and said, ‘I’ve got to do something about these plates. I’m not really a plates kind of guy.’ ”’
via NYTimes
When Mr. Bush moved in, he exercised his presidential decorating prerogatives and asked his wife, Laura, to supervise the design of a new rug. Mr. Bush loved to regale visitors with the story of the rug, whose sunburst design, he liked to say, was intended to evoke a feeling of optimism.
The rug is still there, as are the presidential portraits Mr. Bush selected — one of Washington, one of Lincoln — and a collection of decorative green and white plates. During a meeting last week with retired military officials, before he signed an executive order shutting down the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mr. Obama surveyed his new environs with a critical eye.
“He looked around,” said one of his guests, retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, “and said, ‘I’ve got to do something about these plates. I’m not really a plates kind of guy.’ ”’
via NYTimes
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The fate of the humanities
19/01/09 21:20
“In previous columns and in a recent book I
have argued that higher education, properly
understood, is distinguished by the absence of a
direct and designed relationship between its
activities and measurable effects in the world.
This is a very old idea that has received periodic re-formulations. Here is a statement by the philosopher Michael Oakeshott that may stand as a representative example: “There is an important difference between learning which is concerned with the degree of understanding necessary to practice a skill, and learning which is expressly focused upon an enterprise of understanding and explaining.”
Understanding and explaining what? The answer is understanding and explaining anything as long as the exercise is not performed with the purpose of intervening in the social and political crises of the moment, as long, that is, as the activity is not regarded as instrumental – valued for its contribution to something more important than itself.
This view of higher education as an enterprise characterized by a determined inutility has often been challenged, and the debates between its proponents and those who argue for a more engaged university experience are lively and apparently perennial. The question such debates avoid is whether the Oakeshottian ideal (celebrated before him by Aristotle, Kant and Max Weber, among others) can really flourish in today’s educational landscape. It may be fun to argue its merits (as I have done), but that argument may be merely academic – in the pejorative sense of the word – if it has no support in the real world from which it rhetorically distances itself. In today’s climate, does it have a chance?
In a new book, “The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities,” Frank Donoghue (as it happens, a former student of mine) asks that question and answers “No.”
Donoghue begins by challenging the oft-repeated declaration that liberal arts education in general and the humanities in particular face a crisis, a word that suggests an interruption of a normal state of affairs and the possibility of restoring the natural order of things.
“Such a vision of restored stability,” says Donoghue, “is a delusion” because the conditions to which many seek a return – healthy humanities departments populated by tenure-track professors who discuss books with adoring students in a cloistered setting – have largely vanished. Except in a few private wealthy universities (functioning almost as museums), the splendid and supported irrelevance of humanist inquiry for its own sake is already a thing of the past. In “ two or three generations,” Donoghue predicts, “humanists . . . will become an insignificant percentage of the country’s university instructional workforce.””
Stanley Fish in today’s NYTimes
This is a very old idea that has received periodic re-formulations. Here is a statement by the philosopher Michael Oakeshott that may stand as a representative example: “There is an important difference between learning which is concerned with the degree of understanding necessary to practice a skill, and learning which is expressly focused upon an enterprise of understanding and explaining.”
Understanding and explaining what? The answer is understanding and explaining anything as long as the exercise is not performed with the purpose of intervening in the social and political crises of the moment, as long, that is, as the activity is not regarded as instrumental – valued for its contribution to something more important than itself.
This view of higher education as an enterprise characterized by a determined inutility has often been challenged, and the debates between its proponents and those who argue for a more engaged university experience are lively and apparently perennial. The question such debates avoid is whether the Oakeshottian ideal (celebrated before him by Aristotle, Kant and Max Weber, among others) can really flourish in today’s educational landscape. It may be fun to argue its merits (as I have done), but that argument may be merely academic – in the pejorative sense of the word – if it has no support in the real world from which it rhetorically distances itself. In today’s climate, does it have a chance?
In a new book, “The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities,” Frank Donoghue (as it happens, a former student of mine) asks that question and answers “No.”
Donoghue begins by challenging the oft-repeated declaration that liberal arts education in general and the humanities in particular face a crisis, a word that suggests an interruption of a normal state of affairs and the possibility of restoring the natural order of things.
“Such a vision of restored stability,” says Donoghue, “is a delusion” because the conditions to which many seek a return – healthy humanities departments populated by tenure-track professors who discuss books with adoring students in a cloistered setting – have largely vanished. Except in a few private wealthy universities (functioning almost as museums), the splendid and supported irrelevance of humanist inquiry for its own sake is already a thing of the past. In “ two or three generations,” Donoghue predicts, “humanists . . . will become an insignificant percentage of the country’s university instructional workforce.””
Stanley Fish in today’s NYTimes
PR
19/01/09 17:58
Written for an upcoming show (The Transatlantic
Sessions, Exmouth Festival 26th May):
Jonathan Chatwin's fascination with American music results in no small part from his having been subjected to his father's constant repetition of the same old John Denver and Don McLean CDs in the early years of his childhood. 'Some of it must have seeped in somewhere,' says Jonathan, 'though I'd be unhappy to a degree to credit the whole of my musical career to the influence of John Denver.' With a songwriting style which owes much to the tradition of Springsteen and Steve Earle, Jonathan's music certainly doesn't convey the easy emotions of commercial country artists, with a hard edge of disillusion running through much of his writing. 'It doesn't make for cheerful listening all of the time,' Jon observes, 'but then what's the point of offering up empty platitudes?' Jonathan's upcoming record reflects the interrogative nature of his songwriting. Titled 'You Can't Reach the Highway from Here', this EP is the first solo release that the musician credits with the maturity he had previously strived for. 'I realised that I'd been unconsciously writing songs that were thematically connected by the desire for escape, and the inability to do so. So I thought; I'll make a record that conveys that emotion. It's satisfying, because the whole thing feels as though it has a point. And really, that's the most important thing as a musician who isn't really bothered by celebrity.' Jonathan's contribution to the Transatlantic Sessions won't be purely original, however. 'It'd be churlish not to throw a few classics in there. You never know, I might even do an old John Denver number....'
More news on the EP release as I have it, but it’s really not far off being done. Tracklisting thus far:
You Can’t Reach the Highway from Here
RLS
If you Love Someone
St Mary’s
Across the Water (as yet unwritten!)
Jonathan Chatwin's fascination with American music results in no small part from his having been subjected to his father's constant repetition of the same old John Denver and Don McLean CDs in the early years of his childhood. 'Some of it must have seeped in somewhere,' says Jonathan, 'though I'd be unhappy to a degree to credit the whole of my musical career to the influence of John Denver.' With a songwriting style which owes much to the tradition of Springsteen and Steve Earle, Jonathan's music certainly doesn't convey the easy emotions of commercial country artists, with a hard edge of disillusion running through much of his writing. 'It doesn't make for cheerful listening all of the time,' Jon observes, 'but then what's the point of offering up empty platitudes?' Jonathan's upcoming record reflects the interrogative nature of his songwriting. Titled 'You Can't Reach the Highway from Here', this EP is the first solo release that the musician credits with the maturity he had previously strived for. 'I realised that I'd been unconsciously writing songs that were thematically connected by the desire for escape, and the inability to do so. So I thought; I'll make a record that conveys that emotion. It's satisfying, because the whole thing feels as though it has a point. And really, that's the most important thing as a musician who isn't really bothered by celebrity.' Jonathan's contribution to the Transatlantic Sessions won't be purely original, however. 'It'd be churlish not to throw a few classics in there. You never know, I might even do an old John Denver number....'
More news on the EP release as I have it, but it’s really not far off being done. Tracklisting thus far:
You Can’t Reach the Highway from Here
RLS
If you Love Someone
St Mary’s
Across the Water (as yet unwritten!)
Panic!
05/01/09 12:39
It’s time to cancel any plans for the next
couple of days, make sure you have plenty of food and
water in the house, and fit the snow chains to the
car. The Times has shocking news for you:
“[A] belt of sleet and snow showers running down through East Anglia and the South East could leave 1cm (0.4in) of snow on the ground this morning. It could also wash away the grit spread by councils during the night and leave widespread ice on roads and pavements during the morning rush hour.”
“[A] belt of sleet and snow showers running down through East Anglia and the South East could leave 1cm (0.4in) of snow on the ground this morning. It could also wash away the grit spread by councils during the night and leave widespread ice on roads and pavements during the morning rush hour.”
The Far Side
01/01/09 17:54
Welcome to 2009, all. I’m sure we all have high
hopes for the coming 365 days; personally, I’m
hoping to attain my goal of owning a small Caribbean
island before the year is through (who says New
Year’s Resolutions suffer from a lack of
realism?). Whilst excited by what’s to come, I
thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the
past twelve months in what I like to call
‘Jonathan Chatwin’s Hungover
Recollections of ‘08’. So what happened?
1) I became a Doctor. And if you don’t believe me, see here for proof.
2) The rest of the world discovered that people really are as stupid as I’ve always said they are and that we’re slowly turning into a country of reactionary, small minded idiots.
3) This realisation was set in counterpoint to the most recent example of the United States’ brilliant capacity for reinvention. This was quite simply the great event of our generation.
4) Both the Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver records weren’t as good as everyone said they were.
5) It became apparent to me that Richard Ford is the greatest living fiction writer.
6) I fell in love with Wales all over again, and began to foster dreams of a small cottage in the Black Mountains where I can curl up and read whilst the rest of the world descends into chaos.
7) People drastically overused the words ‘meltdown’ and ‘apocalypse’.
8) I watched Brokeback Mountain again and realised that it is probably the best film of the last decade.
I’m sure other stuff happened along the way, but that’s all I’ve got for now. Back to nursing my hangover.
Happy New Year!
JC
1) I became a Doctor. And if you don’t believe me, see here for proof.
2) The rest of the world discovered that people really are as stupid as I’ve always said they are and that we’re slowly turning into a country of reactionary, small minded idiots.
3) This realisation was set in counterpoint to the most recent example of the United States’ brilliant capacity for reinvention. This was quite simply the great event of our generation.
4) Both the Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver records weren’t as good as everyone said they were.
5) It became apparent to me that Richard Ford is the greatest living fiction writer.
6) I fell in love with Wales all over again, and began to foster dreams of a small cottage in the Black Mountains where I can curl up and read whilst the rest of the world descends into chaos.
7) People drastically overused the words ‘meltdown’ and ‘apocalypse’.
8) I watched Brokeback Mountain again and realised that it is probably the best film of the last decade.
I’m sure other stuff happened along the way, but that’s all I’ve got for now. Back to nursing my hangover.
Happy New Year!
JC