Barbara Ehrenreich has died
September 2, 2022 6:11 PM Subscribe
.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:26 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:26 PM on September 2, 2022
See also
When do you know you’re old enough to die? Barbara Ehrenreich has some answers
Barbara Ehrenreich Contains Multitudes. They’re All Ticked Off.
On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich: Are humans on the verge of ‘peace talks’ with the non-human world?
posted by y2karl at 6:28 PM on September 2, 2022 [26 favorites]
When do you know you’re old enough to die? Barbara Ehrenreich has some answers
Barbara Ehrenreich Contains Multitudes. They’re All Ticked Off.
On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich: Are humans on the verge of ‘peace talks’ with the non-human world?
posted by y2karl at 6:28 PM on September 2, 2022 [26 favorites]
"What makes me very mad about all the attention to the opioid epidemic is how little attention there is to pain. We have a pain epidemic in America. Where does that come from? Because if you work, particularly in a manual labor kind of job, by the time you’re 45 or 50, your back is out, your knees are going, your rotator cuffs are gone. Everything hurts. You want to keep doing that job? You need to take opioids. I think that’s horrible, and I would rather work on diminishing the pain of so many people’s labor."
posted by clawsoon at 6:30 PM on September 2, 2022 [103 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 6:30 PM on September 2, 2022 [103 favorites]
I think it was 1990 when I went to a DSA conference in Baltimore. I attended a long session that got fairly heated at the end and was anxious to escape from the stuffy room. As soon as it ended, I hit the exit and took off walking. A woman was about 30 feet in front of me, headed in the same direction. I was walking faster, so I made some noise and room as I passed. It was Barbara. Later, she noticed me and said something like, "So you like to take walks also?" We had a brief conversation about our need to get out and walk in order to think clearly.
posted by perhapses at 6:34 PM on September 2, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by perhapses at 6:34 PM on September 2, 2022 [21 favorites]
.
posted by ducky l'orange at 6:37 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by ducky l'orange at 6:37 PM on September 2, 2022
In her memory, let me just say GO REGISTER VOTERS
.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 6:49 PM on September 2, 2022 [27 favorites]
.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 6:49 PM on September 2, 2022 [27 favorites]
.
posted by lalochezia at 6:54 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by lalochezia at 6:54 PM on September 2, 2022
NYT: Barbara Ehrenreich, Explorer of Prosperity’s Dark Side, Dies at 81
posted by lalochezia at 6:55 PM on September 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by lalochezia at 6:55 PM on September 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
. 👊
posted by socialjusticeworrier at 6:57 PM on September 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by socialjusticeworrier at 6:57 PM on September 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
@RebeccaSolnit tweeted exactly what I was feeling --
"Barbara Ehrenreich is gone. I'd say "May her memory be a blessing" to those who were with her; may it be a scourge to those who were against her, as it was during her life. May she rest in power, may her words keep working"
posted by pjsky at 6:58 PM on September 2, 2022 [75 favorites]
"Barbara Ehrenreich is gone. I'd say "May her memory be a blessing" to those who were with her; may it be a scourge to those who were against her, as it was during her life. May she rest in power, may her words keep working"
posted by pjsky at 6:58 PM on September 2, 2022 [75 favorites]
There are never enough Barbara Ehrenreichs in this world.
RIP
posted by Pouteria at 7:03 PM on September 2, 2022 [12 favorites]
RIP
posted by Pouteria at 7:03 PM on September 2, 2022 [12 favorites]
Linda Tirado had a nice story on twitter about her. I was glad to find out they knew each other.
Inasmuch as I have heroes, she was one. the world is a sadder place without her.
.
posted by mygothlaundry at 7:18 PM on September 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
Inasmuch as I have heroes, she was one. the world is a sadder place without her.
.
posted by mygothlaundry at 7:18 PM on September 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
I read Nickled and Dimed while I was working in a community college bookstore after coming out of 4 years of running around doing seasonal work at close to minimum wage.
I learned something very different from that book than what it intended to communicate. I learned that the audience for the book existed. I'm glad she wrote the book for them.
posted by aniola at 7:23 PM on September 2, 2022 [21 favorites]
I learned something very different from that book than what it intended to communicate. I learned that the audience for the book existed. I'm glad she wrote the book for them.
posted by aniola at 7:23 PM on September 2, 2022 [21 favorites]
.
posted by Sing Fool Sing at 7:30 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by Sing Fool Sing at 7:30 PM on September 2, 2022
An amazing journalist and writer who brooked no shit.
.
posted by virago at 8:01 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
.
posted by virago at 8:01 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
I thought when I was growing up that I knew something about working, but her writing is one of the places where I found out what real work is like: hard, poorly-paid, damaging to your health, and with no end in sight.
She and Dorothy Day and the book Rivethead changed me, and opened my eyes.
Put your feet up for a while, Barbara, and take a well- deserved break.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:04 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
She and Dorothy Day and the book Rivethead changed me, and opened my eyes.
Put your feet up for a while, Barbara, and take a well- deserved break.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:04 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
I am thankful for her and her work; she is an inspiration.
.
posted by theora55 at 8:14 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
.
posted by theora55 at 8:14 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'll just leave this clip of her from The American Ruling Class (2005) here.
.
posted by zaixfeep at 8:16 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
.
posted by zaixfeep at 8:16 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Ben Ehrenreich:
Sad news. Barbara Ehrenreich, my one and only mother, died on September 1, a few days after her 81st birthday. She was, she made clear, ready to go. She was never much for thoughts and prayers, but you can honor her memory by loving one another, and by fighting like hell.posted by zamboni at 8:22 PM on September 2, 2022 [44 favorites]
I recently made a claim on a forum that Barbara Ehrenreich is the under-recognized left genius analyst of our time. Perhaps sexism keeps her from being held up along with the male New Left peers. After posting that I realized I haven't read that much Ehrenreich, mostly essays and interviews, so I grabbed a couple books from the library to see if I was overstating my case. I'm a couple books in to this project and my first reflection is: maybe part of why she isn't identified as one of our most powerful intellectuals is because that was not at all her project. She was anti-pretention, and most of her career was writing articles for popular audiences. Her sentences are straightforward, some of it comes off as sort of an op ed of the left, a bit lacking in quantitative evidence. She sort of noodles around with lots of ideas in a very free way unrestrained by traditional ideological boundaries. (David Graeber reminds me a bit of her in this way. Everything is up for grabs conceptually). She has these deep intellectual chops that are revealed occasionally in interviews, and probably in a bunch of earlier essays I haven't read, but she seems to have remained grounded in organizing, instead of just writing in isolation. She spent time in academia but from what I understand mostly was a working journalist who got really lucky with that one book. I know that book is criticized (including in this thread) for the weird poverty tourism for a middle class audience, (and from what I understand she ultimately basically agreed with that, although she did come from working class roots, but also acknowledged the class position she had arrived at) and I find some of her other writing also a bit simplistic in that same way, but also there's a virtue to that. She came out of socialist organizing and took seriously the need to unite people across class and also identity. The unique combination of topics that she kept returning to: health/sickness, women's position in society, class oppression, and the social construction of all the above is unique and offers useful ways of understanding the world. Anyway, I'm going to keep reading.
Has anyone here read her novel?
posted by latkes at 8:42 PM on September 2, 2022 [35 favorites]
Has anyone here read her novel?
posted by latkes at 8:42 PM on September 2, 2022 [35 favorites]
.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 9:21 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by JoeXIII007 at 9:21 PM on September 2, 2022
.
posted by Token Meme at 9:43 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by Token Meme at 9:43 PM on September 2, 2022
.
posted by Anita Bath at 9:48 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by Anita Bath at 9:48 PM on September 2, 2022
I would have nothing near the conscience I do today without her work. Indeed, may her memory be for a blessing.
posted by Token Meme at 9:49 PM on September 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Token Meme at 9:49 PM on September 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
One of the greatest to ever do it and one of the first writers to
radically change the way I saw the world.
.
posted by windbox at 9:52 PM on September 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
radically change the way I saw the world.
.
posted by windbox at 9:52 PM on September 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 9:52 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 9:52 PM on September 2, 2022
.
posted by quazichimp at 9:57 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by quazichimp at 9:57 PM on September 2, 2022
.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 10:05 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 10:05 PM on September 2, 2022
.
posted by EvaDestruction at 10:12 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by EvaDestruction at 10:12 PM on September 2, 2022
.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 10:15 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by kitten kaboodle at 10:15 PM on September 2, 2022
.
posted by honey badger at 11:22 PM on September 2, 2022
posted by honey badger at 11:22 PM on September 2, 2022
.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 1:15 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 1:15 AM on September 3, 2022
I'll recommend her _Bright-Sided_, which is about the idea that imagination creates reality-- a very destructive idea. It's got a history, and (at the time of the book) was spreading among (American?) CEOs.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:25 AM on September 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:25 AM on September 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
.
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:58 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:58 AM on September 3, 2022
.
posted by inexorably_forward at 3:14 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by inexorably_forward at 3:14 AM on September 3, 2022
.
posted by dannyboybell at 4:25 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by dannyboybell at 4:25 AM on September 3, 2022
I don't have the book handy to refer to (it is somewhere in my library of boxes) but the first book of hers I read was The Worse Years of our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed which I picked up at a second hand bookshop (or a thrift store - I can't remember which). It was a look back on the Reagan years. In the forward she described how in her Dad's declining years in a nursing home with Alzheimer's, the nurses would ask him a standard question to test his awareness: "Who is the president?". And union man that he was, he never failed to respond: "Ronald Reagan, the sumovabitch!"
On the basis of that book, I picked up Nickel and Dimed first time I saw it.
posted by rochrobbb at 4:54 AM on September 3, 2022 [14 favorites]
On the basis of that book, I picked up Nickel and Dimed first time I saw it.
posted by rochrobbb at 4:54 AM on September 3, 2022 [14 favorites]
.
posted by wheek wheek wheek at 5:03 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by wheek wheek wheek at 5:03 AM on September 3, 2022
Barbara Ehrenreich was a fucking titan.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:21 AM on September 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:21 AM on September 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
.
posted by interogative mood at 5:38 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by interogative mood at 5:38 AM on September 3, 2022
.
posted by ourobouros at 5:56 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by ourobouros at 5:56 AM on September 3, 2022
.
posted by talking leaf at 6:18 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by talking leaf at 6:18 AM on September 3, 2022
Time plays tricks, I had assumed I’d read Nickled and Dimed in college, but it came out after I’d graduated, but it clearly played an important part in how I’ve come to see the world.
I wish I still was that guy, fresh out of college, still devouring books like hers, but damn, I know I’ve calcified to a larger extent than I’m comfortable admitting, and have done a shit job of trying to keep up, to pay attention, and to learn as much as I could.
At the risk of turning this into an Ask, anyone care to honor her memory by sharing books along a similar vein? Not just hers, but any books out there that do the work of exposing and exploring? Somehow I think it would be a pretty fitting memorial to have a thread filled with resources, with more of what she’d want us to read.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:46 AM on September 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
I wish I still was that guy, fresh out of college, still devouring books like hers, but damn, I know I’ve calcified to a larger extent than I’m comfortable admitting, and have done a shit job of trying to keep up, to pay attention, and to learn as much as I could.
At the risk of turning this into an Ask, anyone care to honor her memory by sharing books along a similar vein? Not just hers, but any books out there that do the work of exposing and exploring? Somehow I think it would be a pretty fitting memorial to have a thread filled with resources, with more of what she’d want us to read.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:46 AM on September 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:04 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by rhymedirective at 7:04 AM on September 3, 2022
.
posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 7:24 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 7:24 AM on September 3, 2022
.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:48 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by hydropsyche at 7:48 AM on September 3, 2022
Ghidorah, these are both classics of the genre that you may have read long ago, but The American Way of Death, by Jessica Mitford, and Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, each brought large-scale problems to new light in ways that started conversations in places they had not previously been happening. More recently, Tressie Cottom’s Lower Ed gets at the intersection of higher ed, student loans, and race in a way that feels to me like it should be sparking new conversations (alas for current entrenched stances on college, loans, race, etc.).
I share those in the spirit of learning and uncovering that I’d like to think Barbara Ehrenreich would have appreciated.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:54 AM on September 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
I share those in the spirit of learning and uncovering that I’d like to think Barbara Ehrenreich would have appreciated.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:54 AM on September 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
.
Definitely recommend y2karl's third link, the interview about her concepts of the PMC.
latkes, I think you have hit the nail on the head about the unpretentious nature of her writing voice.
posted by panhopticon at 8:03 AM on September 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
Definitely recommend y2karl's third link, the interview about her concepts of the PMC.
latkes, I think you have hit the nail on the head about the unpretentious nature of her writing voice.
posted by panhopticon at 8:03 AM on September 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
.
posted by What is E. T. short for? at 8:12 AM on September 3, 2022
posted by What is E. T. short for? at 8:12 AM on September 3, 2022
Time plays tricks, I had assumed I’d read Nickled and Dimed in college, but it came out after I’d graduated, but it clearly played an important part in how I’ve come to see the world.
Same. I could have sworn I remember discussing it with my then-roommate, but it was years later that it was actually released.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:42 AM on September 3, 2022
Same. I could have sworn I remember discussing it with my then-roommate, but it was years later that it was actually released.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:42 AM on September 3, 2022
I really liked her take on positivity - here is an animation to her talking about it.
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:58 AM on September 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:58 AM on September 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
From back in 1979: The Charge: Gynocide
Nickel and Dimed is great, but I don't think she ever wrote a bad book, and the two-decade string from Fear of Falling to The Worst Years of Our Lives to The Snarling Citizen to Blood Rites to Nickel and Dimed to Global Woman to Bait and Switch is one for the ages.
.
posted by box at 10:25 AM on September 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
Nickel and Dimed is great, but I don't think she ever wrote a bad book, and the two-decade string from Fear of Falling to The Worst Years of Our Lives to The Snarling Citizen to Blood Rites to Nickel and Dimed to Global Woman to Bait and Switch is one for the ages.
.
posted by box at 10:25 AM on September 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
I don't know the path that leads us from our confused and sad and scary world towards a better one, but I know that, when we get there, Ehrenreich will be seen as one of its architects, however indirectly.
(And to the extent that I have hope that we can find our way there, it's at least in small part because Barbara Ehrenreich existed.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 10:36 AM on September 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
(And to the extent that I have hope that we can find our way there, it's at least in small part because Barbara Ehrenreich existed.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 10:36 AM on September 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
…anyone care to honor her memory by sharing books along a similar vein?
I just finished rereading The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan; which might be dated, but still seems prophetic to the current insanity here in the US.
posted by jabo at 11:08 AM on September 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
I just finished rereading The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan; which might be dated, but still seems prophetic to the current insanity here in the US.
posted by jabo at 11:08 AM on September 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
Has anyone here read her novel?
Only me? I had to order it in hardcover in 2015.
Here's an excerpt I liked and so saved to a file at the time:
Della watched a young mother with a tattoo on one bare arm moving furiously ahead; the stroller she was pushing might have been a minesweeper; the older child who dragged behind looked like a prisoner of whatever war the mother was serving in.
Della had never been like that. Even when Steve was little they had walked along side by side like a settled, older couple separated only by the accident of height.
posted by Obscure Reference at 11:47 AM on September 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Only me? I had to order it in hardcover in 2015.
Here's an excerpt I liked and so saved to a file at the time:
Della watched a young mother with a tattoo on one bare arm moving furiously ahead; the stroller she was pushing might have been a minesweeper; the older child who dragged behind looked like a prisoner of whatever war the mother was serving in.
Della had never been like that. Even when Steve was little they had walked along side by side like a settled, older couple separated only by the accident of height.
posted by Obscure Reference at 11:47 AM on September 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Nickel and Dimed turned my Reagan Republican dad into a good tipper, and he was a self-bootstrapper who used "set in his ways" as a philosophy of life.
.
posted by rhizome at 12:07 PM on September 3, 2022 [10 favorites]
.
posted by rhizome at 12:07 PM on September 3, 2022 [10 favorites]
.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 1:23 PM on September 3, 2022
posted by pelvicsorcery at 1:23 PM on September 3, 2022
- Time plays tricks, I had assumed I’d read Nickled and Dimed in college, but it came out after I’d graduated, but it clearly played an important part in how I’ve come to see the world.
-- Same. I could have sworn I remember discussing it with my then-roommate, but it was years later that it was actually released.
Maybe you read Ehrenreich's essay "Nickel-and-Dimed" (text) in the January 1999 issue of Harper's?
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:06 PM on September 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
-- Same. I could have sworn I remember discussing it with my then-roommate, but it was years later that it was actually released.
Maybe you read Ehrenreich's essay "Nickel-and-Dimed" (text) in the January 1999 issue of Harper's?
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:06 PM on September 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
“Nickel and Dimed“ had a huge impact on me, and still does. Well done you! Be at peace.
.
posted by fluffycreature at 2:37 PM on September 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
.
posted by fluffycreature at 2:37 PM on September 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
.
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 3:39 PM on September 3, 2022
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 3:39 PM on September 3, 2022
She and Nancy Folbre are two women who profoundly shaped my politics/understanding of the world.
.
posted by emjaybee at 3:40 PM on September 3, 2022
.
posted by emjaybee at 3:40 PM on September 3, 2022
"Don’t forget to have a good time while you’re doing things. Political work should not be work." -- Barbara Ehrenreich Has Some Advice for Young Leftists (March 23, 2020 GQ interview; archived)
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:33 PM on September 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:33 PM on September 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 5:53 PM on September 3, 2022
posted by gentlyepigrams at 5:53 PM on September 3, 2022
From that March 23, 2020 GQ interview:
A friend recently reminded me of when, in 1998, Judith Butler and Joseph Buttigieg [Pete Buttigieg’s father] pulled together a conference to take you down for your “left conservatism.”
What??!!
posted by latkes at 8:57 PM on September 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
A friend recently reminded me of when, in 1998, Judith Butler and Joseph Buttigieg [Pete Buttigieg’s father] pulled together a conference to take you down for your “left conservatism.”
What??!!
posted by latkes at 8:57 PM on September 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
Joseph Buttigieg [Pete Buttigieg’s father]...“left conservatism.”
What??!!
Right? I don't have answers, but there are interesting bread crumbs...
"rather a set of general reflections on certain divisions which are evident within leftist thought. ...the current polemics about the leftist, or non-leftist, or pseudo-leftist character of poststructuralist thought, “bring to the fore long unresolved questions about how the left conceives the nature and stakes of critical work over the past fifty years and into the future.”...whom do these questions matter, and why is it worth the effort to try to resolve them? To the overwhelming majority of the population, these questions are not just uninteresting but incomprehensible. Indeed, most will never even hear about them; whereas many of those vaguely aware of the controversy—normally through some journalistic account or slick, more caricatured version of it—are either mildly amused by it, or angered by the fact that well-paid professors are busily engaged in esoteric debates when they should be imparting to their sons and daughters the kind of “useful” knowledge and profitable (or marketable) skills for which they are paying astronomical tuition fees; or else they are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of assorted leftists, radicals, and crypto-communists annihilating one another."
[emphasis added]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 12:54 AM on September 4, 2022
What??!!
Right? I don't have answers, but there are interesting bread crumbs...
"rather a set of general reflections on certain divisions which are evident within leftist thought. ...the current polemics about the leftist, or non-leftist, or pseudo-leftist character of poststructuralist thought, “bring to the fore long unresolved questions about how the left conceives the nature and stakes of critical work over the past fifty years and into the future.”...whom do these questions matter, and why is it worth the effort to try to resolve them? To the overwhelming majority of the population, these questions are not just uninteresting but incomprehensible. Indeed, most will never even hear about them; whereas many of those vaguely aware of the controversy—normally through some journalistic account or slick, more caricatured version of it—are either mildly amused by it, or angered by the fact that well-paid professors are busily engaged in esoteric debates when they should be imparting to their sons and daughters the kind of “useful” knowledge and profitable (or marketable) skills for which they are paying astronomical tuition fees; or else they are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of assorted leftists, radicals, and crypto-communists annihilating one another."
[emphasis added]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 12:54 AM on September 4, 2022
Apologies, I meant to link the above
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 1:13 AM on September 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 1:13 AM on September 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
The "left conservativism" as described in the conference synopsis link from the GQ interview certainly sounds like it's essentially defined by the sin of being popularly accessible. That said, my ability to sift through the syntactical contortions of the links is limited; if anyone else has more context I'd be interested in hearing it.
Academic defensiveness about our collective right to exist as scholars doesn't come out of nowhere, but I see a certain reflexive reach for jargon and inaccessible language in some corners as a shield against external criticism. This sounds to me like a kneejerk attempt to justify the existence of less accessible forms of leftist thought, which. 'Kay then.
posted by sciatrix at 9:34 AM on September 4, 2022
Academic defensiveness about our collective right to exist as scholars doesn't come out of nowhere, but I see a certain reflexive reach for jargon and inaccessible language in some corners as a shield against external criticism. This sounds to me like a kneejerk attempt to justify the existence of less accessible forms of leftist thought, which. 'Kay then.
posted by sciatrix at 9:34 AM on September 4, 2022
.
posted by blue shadows at 9:26 PM on September 4, 2022
posted by blue shadows at 9:26 PM on September 4, 2022
.
And let me also recommend her book, Living with a Wild God
posted by ikahime at 9:50 PM on September 4, 2022
And let me also recommend her book, Living with a Wild God
posted by ikahime at 9:50 PM on September 4, 2022
(A little more commentary about 'left conservatism' and that conference: Eli Rothman, Kristina Zarlengo. If one (not me, I feel like I spent enough time thinking about late-'90s academia during the late '90s) wanted to dig deeper, I would point them to UC Santa Cruz's Center for Cultural Studies records, which has boxes from both Judith Butler and Joseph Buttigieg.)
posted by box at 5:58 AM on September 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by box at 5:58 AM on September 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
(Also, I just learned that Pete Buttigieg's parents were both Notre Dame professors, and, wow, that definitely tracks.)
posted by box at 5:59 AM on September 6, 2022
posted by box at 5:59 AM on September 6, 2022
On Barbara Ehrenreich (Gabriel Winant for n+1)
posted by box at 9:06 AM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by box at 9:06 AM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
« Older Makes all her previous albums look like a pair of... | Leatherface through the ages Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by praemunire at 6:21 PM on September 2, 2022 [1 favorite]