Same Old New Criterion ...
"DANIEL P. Tompkins" <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.education.classics |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <CALDHrcaf2vbVfxn36R_F-epz3_QYsm-Yi5ruMRd7CyTva2bOkw@mail.gmail.com> |
... Its current issue <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newcriterion.com%2Fissues%2F2019%2F3%2Fdecline-fall-classics-edition&data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40lsv.uky.edu%7C84d1fff906974016034608d6a0997524%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C636872978296069016&sdata=b%2FSII2Lo06yhybbKKzaMK0Yi68aHxXI4yBIUAWYLF3Y%3D&reserved=0> assails black studies and women's studies as "pseudo-disciplines." Which rang a bell: they've been saying the same thing for decades, e.g. this from 1998: Black studies and other programs of racial and ethnic redress certainly compete with women's studies for utter intellectual nullity. Folks can save the price of a subscription by just reading issues from 2 decades ago and changing a few names: the content -- the laments for a supposedly lost "excellence," the resentment against new fields, the condescension toward social science in general, are endlessly repeated, without change. Some in our field will recall the easy* derogation of women's studies by colleagues, from the early 1970s: what better way to mark the, er, semicentennial of obloquy than by recycling ancient insults. *New Criterion *was a leading lagging indicator of culture from the get - go, an old criterion that showed a sense of humor only by choosing the adjective in its title. I was surprised to realize that Roger Kimball, the editor, is younger than I. Since its founding in 1982 (I think), he has sounded like a resentful ancient. This was spurred by a good essay at <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsententiaeantiquae.com%2F2019%2F03%2F03%2Frising-and-evolving-classical-studies-in-the-news%2F&data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40lsv.uky.edu%7C84d1fff906974016034608d6a0997524%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C636872978296069016&sdata=xN7Cxt%2B%2FOGyjQI6WH87zV%2BCAVKAR0tOh6PkfpG5auSc%3D&reserved=0>*Sententiae Antiquae <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsententiaeantiquae.com%2F2019%2F03%2F03%2Frising-and-evolving-classical-studies-in-the-news%2F&data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40lsv.uky.edu%7C84d1fff906974016034608d6a0997524%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C636872978296069016&sdata=xN7Cxt%2B%2FOGyjQI6WH87zV%2BCAVKAR0tOh6PkfpG5auSc%3D&reserved=0>, *by "Joel." Glad to see it. Dan *"Easy" because the derogators generally had put in none of the effort to incorporate findings from anthropology, psychology and other fields into their work that distinguished the fine work by feminists.