Cioran's literary elitism is unparalleled in modern literature, and for that reason he often appears as a nuisance for modern and sentimental ears poised for the lullaby words of eternal earthly or spiritual bliss. Cioran's hatred of the present and the future, his disrespect for life, will certainly continue to antagonize the apostles of modernity who never tire of chanting vague promises about the "better here-and-now." ... If one could reduce the portrayal of Cioran to one short paragraph, then one must depict him as an author who sees in the modern veneration of the intellect a blueprint for spiritual gulags and the uglification of the world. Indeed, for Cioran, man's task is to wash himself in the school of existential futility, for futility is not hopelessness; futility is a reward for those wishing to rid themselves of the epidemic of life and the virus of hope. Probably, this picture best befits the man who describes himself as a fanatic without any convictions--a stranded accident in the cosmos who casts nostalgic looks towards his quick disappearance. -
Tomislav Sunic [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Oct 4, 2011 -
29 comments
Humanities and the Liberal Arts is the personal website of former Middlebury classics professor
William Harris who passed away in 2009.
In his retirement he crafted a wonderful site full of essays,
music,
sculpture,
poetry and his thoughts on anything from
education to
technology. But the heart of the website for me is, unsurprisingly,
his essays on ancient Latin and Greek literature some of whom are book-length works. Here are a few examples:
Purple color in Homer,
complete fragments of Heraclitus,
how to read Homer and Vergil,
a discussion of a recently unearthed poem by Sappho,
Plato and mathematics,
Propertius' war poems, and finally, especially close to my heart, his commentaries on the poetry of Catullus, for example on
Ipsithilla,
Odi et amo,
Attis poem as dramatic dance performance and
a couple of very dirty poems (even by Catullus' standard). That's just a taste of the riches found on Harris' site, which has been around nearly as long as the world wide web has existed.
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 30, 2011 -
18 comments
We are making journal content on JSTOR published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere,
freely available to the public for reading and downloading. This includes nearly 500,000 articles from more than 200 journals, representing approximately 6% of the total content on JSTOR.
posted by Trurl
on Sep 7, 2011 -
84 comments
How to define digital humanities? "
the humanities done digitallys"?
Should we expand the definition of the field to include, as I've heard it said several times, "every medievalist with a Web site"? Undoubtedly not. Yeah, not. Rather,
The particular contribution of the digital humanities, however, lies in its exploration of the difference that the digital can make to the kinds of work that we do, as well as to the ways that we communicate with one another. [more inside]
posted by Mngo
on May 12, 2011 -
39 comments
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and moving case for creating an education system that nurtures
(rather than undermines) creativity. (c. 2007 SLYT TED talk)
posted by snsranch
on Apr 15, 2010 -
5 comments
Camille Paglia: WHAT went wrong at Harvard? "Over the past 40 years, there has been a radical expansion of administrative bureaucracies on American college campuses that has distorted the budget and turned education toward consumerism, a checkbook alliance with parents who are being bled dry by grotesquely exorbitant tuitions."
posted by semmi
on Mar 6, 2006 -
46 comments
' "Oh, you're going to the MLA? What a riot. They're a bunch of sitting ducks." I hadn't been planning to shoot at them, I said'.
Lewis Kraus attends the 119th Annual MLA Conference, and asks what it means to be an English professor after the 'crisis of the humanities'.
posted by Sonny Jim
on Aug 23, 2004 -
10 comments
The Unemployed Philosopher’s Guild began in 1992 when two students of philosophy found their inner creativity in the midst of a dwindling academic job market. As it turned out, fulfilling gift giving needs proved to be almost as satisfying as probing eternal questions. They offer such items as "Freudian Slippers", "Nietzsche's Will to Power Bars", "Brainy Beanies", and "Dorothy Parker Martini Glasses".
posted by ewagoner
on Aug 11, 2003 -
18 comments
