archive

The life of the mind

From The American Scholar, what can it mean to devote oneself to the classics, a discipline that likes to think that it is timeless, that it has cheated the centuries, the millennia? Get your Ph.D. in Lady Gaga: The editors of an online academic journal on Gaga Studies explain why you should take the pop star seriously. Most humanities "research" is the self-indulgent pursuit of obscure hobbies that neither need nor merit funding, and produces only unsold, unread and unreadable books. From C-Span, an interview with Martha Nussbaum, author of Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (and more at Harper's). History for Dollars: As the job market slides, it can be easy for college students picking their majors to forget why humans need the humanities. Analysis questions why so many orientation programs are built around books about multiculturalism or the environment, but educators who organize these efforts say the critique confuses their choices. From Radical Notes, Pothik Ghosh on academics, politics and class struggle. Love in the Time of Capital: An interview with rising intellectual star Eva Illouz on how commodities create feelings, the modern lingua franca of therapy-speak, and Israel’s emotional style. From LRB, Keith Thomas on academic working methods, "an omnium gatherum of materials culled from more or less everywhere". From THES, attractive forces at work: Being brilliant academically isn't enough any more — if you want your career to soar you need to cultivate your erotic capital assets; and flaunt your beauty and intellect: As universities are being forced into the commercial world, academics shouldn't be shy of launching a charm offensive. If you just don't go: Professors need to understand that the life of the mind is also attainable outside academe.