another review of my Lovecraft book

can be found HERE.

 

Weimar

I didn’t realize I’d be speaking tonight in the actual Bauhaus. (Tomorrow’s sessions will be in the Goethe House, no less historic.)

The only other really historic space I can remember lecturing in was at Jack Tilton’s gallery in New York earlier this year. The room where I spoke was supposedly the same room in which Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were married.

one after another

One of the things that philosophers are supposed to do, and are often good at doing, is challenge consensus. Yet I am starting to see far too much unanimous group emotional bonding and easy consensus on a number of issues.

The one on my mind today is that all morning I’ve been bombarded with one article, link, and comment after another talking about how badly the contemporary university system stinks. Everything is unequal and unfair. People are being judged but there is no accurate way to judge them. Universities are being turned into giant corporations and students are just consumers who demand high grades the way they might demand high-quality products, etc. etc.

No doubt this is true in many cases, and it may even be the case that the modern university system as a whole is slipping towards a dark place. But more and more, I am missing any nuance or sense of counterpoint in these discussions. Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in a giant church where everyone is required to chant their agreement with everyone else that everything is horrible and becoming more horrible by the day.

But that’s just group emotional bonding, not philosophy. I like a bit of surprise with my reading, and it’s no longer a surprise to hear that everyone else is a sell-out and a mediocre middle manager with no sense for what really matters.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen any number of nasty people in positions of power in universities, and haven’t always escaped their target list myself. But I hope we can find some way to end this dismal parade of robotically predictable laments about how hopeless our profession is.

Shaviro podcast

I’ve just learned that Bernard Dionysisus Geoghegan has done one of his Cultural Technologies podcasts with Steven Shaviro, HERE. I haven’t had time to listen yet, but look forward to doing so once this conference is over.