Slice of what?

[Joe Allonby]

Some might suggest throwing that out anyway.

Sent from the free webbook that came with my cable subscription.


On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 4:59 AM, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es> wrote:
> I'd throw out my Grateful Dead bootleg tape collection before I thew out Em.
> Sent from my crummy laptop.
> mc otis
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "eburns at gmail.com" <eburns at gmail.com>
> To: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>; "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Cc:
> Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 10:45 AM
> Subject: Re: Slice of what?
>
> I'm hip to this as long as you don't actually toss out the babe Dickinson along with the Bartheswater.
> Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
> Sender: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Tue, 29 May 2012 09:23:20
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org<pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Reply-To: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
> Subject: Slice of what?
>
> I don't intend to respond to the points that came up on the brief theory thread (a book wouldn't likely do it either), but something came up that I think needs attention.
>
> Alice is apparently willing to have a slice of dead white male; not my cup of meat, though (for that matter necrophagia of any type is out for me). I am curious about the term. Shouldn't we add heterosexual? Weren't these malevolent theorists mostly WASP and straight? As a not yet Dead White Male I have a problem with all this. (This is where people point out my REAL problem is that i dont want to recognise the inherently violent nature of the hegemonic discourse of a hierarchical/patriarchical society that misrecognises the object of its desire.... blah blah Kacan, blah blah the other, blah blah hybridity, blah blah... ). It seems to me the kind of juvenile asssessment of certain 'canonical' theorists (please see John Guillory's book) that gets passed off as knowledge in many departments of universities; if the undergrad learns to mimic the gestures and pronounce the term 'phallogocentrism', then success is achieved.
>
> My problem with all this stems from having seen it in action at university. English studies at my Uni required two course on AM lit:Course A -Lit prior to the Civil War, course B - Lit after the civil war. Both courses were taught by the same professor who did very little to hide her bias. She threw out Poe as overtaught, over-valued, and unnecessary. The star of her course was... Emily Dickinson, of course. She claimed that Walt Whitman was not so inventive and that the real genius was Emi. Natch. Whitman gets a pass for being gay, but he is still a white male, damn him. She wasn't very hip to Ginsburg either. Forget Kerouac (one of my profs - a white male - wrote off K's drinking with quick Freudian aplomb -  he was closeted and drank to cover it up. Of course. how simple.) Can you imagine what this can do to the young and impressionable? They swallow it. Now start the chant "Damn the Dead white males"!
>
> All this makes me think about the present cuts going on at Universities. Do you all remember the Sokal affair? Did you read the book he wrote with Jean Bricamont called "Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science"? Some will say it was a dirty trick at the high water mark of the 90's culture wars. but it is a little more than that. It left a scar on the intellectual credit of the humanities/social sciences. How many rectors, deans, or presidents might have that in mind when they think of cuts?
>
> MC Otis - not dead yet
>
> ps. Alice, I hope this doesn't mean we can't sit down to a cup of tea (or coffee) and talk shop. twould be a pity otherwise as i do enjoy your wit.