Evocations

A Novel Bookstore

This novel, entitled A Novel Bookstore, was written by Laurence Cosse, and published by Europa Editions. It is translated from the french. Hence the accent (invisible here, above the e in the author's last name.) 

The story is of a person who starts a bookstore which chooses its books by a very intriguing route. There is a mysterious committee (no one knows who they are, and they are kept, even, from knowledge of one another) which picks llists of 300 or so books, and the contents of the bookstore come from those lists. Each year, they may add some more. So: the bookstore incldues only good books. Yes, a quality distinction. And, the owners -- and the committee -- actually choose wonderfully good books -- even acting in such a way as to create a demand for some long out of print. Their bookstore, it seems. finds a wonderful audience -- and has an impact. All those rather trashy books -- sometimes called peanut books, often selling huge numbers (sometimes even in airports), arriving with great hoopla to big box bookstores and piled in heaps near the door -- are set to the side so that one can actually find the "real" novels. 

Hmmm.

In the book, this leads to all sorts of consequences -- including competition from other like minded (or apparently like minded) capitalists, protests about their elitism in the media (and suitable defenses), and even more. 

I will not spoil the plot but I will ask: what does this have to do with Shimer? Is the notion of choosing only good books at all like proclaiming oneself a great books college? 

Here the complexity is (as articulated in the novel even), that one cannot choose everything. And, one does wish to steer away from sheer junk. But are there limits to this approach? who gets to be the committee? Who chooses the committee?

And, another question: in what ways are bookstores and colleges alike? How are they different? How do they (respectively) relate to the notion of a business or a non profit organization?

I liked this novel novel. Can you tell? Thought provoking and a good read (in the  sense of well translated and articulate as well as in the sense of a romp I enjoyed. )  

For a review in the Washington Post, click here. For some quotations from A Novel BOokstore, ripped out of context, but still worth a gander, click here. 

(Un)Employed Philosophers Guild

I am a fan of the Unemployed Philosophers Guild. Do you know it? 

Having a sense of humor is crucial, and the Unemployed Philosophers Guild does. So, too, does it have a way of linking their humor, their intellectual verve and financial acumen. (The latter hinted at by the fact that their url is actually www.philosophersguild.com and thus the UN is missing.)

In their case, they bring these various features together by selling such things as  Nietzsche's Will to Power Bar, Schrodinger's Cat, and a Virginia Woolf finger puppet (not to mention many more). Each one makes you smile -- if you are in the know. 

Balancing the humor, the intellectual verve and the financial acumen is part of it. But they do one more thing: they fund projects that are oriented toward social justice. (well, they do two more things. They also have this blog.) 

What does all this have to do with Shimer? Several things.

First: I am so much a fan, that I sometimes think of our Ph.D. Philosopher who is an internet marketer as the evidence that Shimer is, in fact, the employed philosophers guild. I also think the blend of intellectual, financial, humor and more is not that different from what we strive for when we are at our best. We must not take ourselves too seriously, but we are serious. We know that employment is not everything though it is definitely important to us all. We care about being financially stable and we are enchanted by similar authors and artists as the Unemployed Philosophers are. We are, in fact, a likely market for each other, I often say, only half-jokingly. 

Second: above I used the phrase "if you're in the know." One way to get "in the know" regarding the products of the Unemployed Philosophers Guild is to get a "great books" education that exposes you to a vast array of the figures that the guild references. And, of course, it does more than "expose" you -- it allows you or requires you to think -- and for that, I think you definitely need a sense of humor. So does April Fool's Day. But there is not a single statement in this blog entry that is false. Trust me. 

Check them out. How many of them do you know?  Are they acquaintances or friends? Or? 

Marge Piercy is Coming and You Should Be There

When I arrived at Shimer, a group of students were doing a tutorial on the "political novel." Among their readings: the work of Marge Piercy. I had taught (having been nudged into it by my partner) a book called Sex Wars in Introduction to Women's Studies in my prior life -- and have read some of her other novels. And, I love her poetry. So, I am thrilled to say that Marge Piercy is going to be doing an event for Shimer in April (details below). 

Why Marge Piercy for a great books college in Chicago? Well, of course, it is not all about the fact that I love her work -- and so do some other Shimerians. There are other reasons. Here are a few:

1. We read the Declaration of Sentiments in some of our courses here at Shimer. This document is a fascinating use of a founding US document to move forward the argument for women's rights. Written in 1848, a year when the Communist Manifesto and much else was penned, the document begins as follows:

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Recognize its origins? The changes?

What does Piercy have to do with this? S0me of the characters of Sex Wars were among the key figures in the creation of this document -- and in the social movements associated with the document.  As historical fiction, the novel instances one way to take the past (including past texts) and make them alive and relevant today. 

2. Because Marge Piercy is a poet -- and she knows what phlogiston is. Try this poem, entitled "For the Young Who Want To" to see her use the term in a poem. The poem is worth a read for many other reasons, including its relevance to reflecting on the purpose and the impact of education. 

3. Because she is mathematically inclined. She knows that one plus one equals one. (Yes, she does. Try this poem.)

4. She knows the midwest, having been born in Michigan and ended her graduate work at Northwestern. Here's what she says on her website about Chicago as a part of her biography:

After that marriage, Piercy lived in Chicago, trying to learn to write the kind of poetry and fiction she imagined but could not yet produce. She supported herself at a variety of part-time jobs; she was a secretary, a switchboard operator, a clerk in a department store, an artists’ model, a poorly paid part-time faculty instructor. She was involved in the civil rights movement.

She remembers those years in Chicago as the hardest of her adult life. She felt she was invisible. As a woman, society defined her as a failure: a divorcee at twenty-three, poor, living on part-time work. As a writer, she was entirely invisible. She wrote novel after novel but could not get published. Piercy remarks that at that time she knew two things about her fiction: she wanted to write fiction with a political dimension (Simone de Beauvoir was her model) and she wanted to write about women she could recognize, working class people who were not as simple as they were supposed to be.

(Here I should note that this evidences, as do the comments further above, that she has been influenced by works read in the Shimer curriculum!)

For these and many other reasons, including my suspicion that her work itself is of enduring historical significance, she wil be joining the Shimer community -- and you, if you want -- in April. 

Marge Piercy is coming to Chicago (of course, she has been here before) and will be giving a talk for Shimer at the Standard Club on April 18. If you are interested in attending, click here to RSVP. 

Is Russ Kick a Shimerian?

I had never heard of Russ Kick until I read a NY Times Book Review of his edited work, The Graphic Canon Volume 1 ( there are 3 volumes; 2 have been published and one is due in April). Probably, I would not have noticed the review had I not become a Shimerian myself this year. And yet, as soon as I read it, the question of Kick's Shimerishness came to mind.  I was startled to find that the graphic canon was not an attempt to identify, select and canonize extant graphic novels, but rather the creation of works that conjoined the imaginations of wonderful artists with works that, as the review itself notes, almost all appeared on Harold Bloom's list of the "Western Canon." (For Bloom's book, click here. For his list, try here.) While not identical to humanities lists taught at great books colleges, and certainly not identical to Shimer's curriculum, still, there seemed to be something sympatico here. Somehow, the review made evident that what some see as oxymoronic -- the notion of graphic (novels ) and of the (western) canon  conjoined -- was, well, not contradictory at all. In fact, the two might belong together in some important way. 

At first glance, though, the answer to today's question is obvious. No. Russ Kick neither attended nor graduated from Shimer College. And yet, the question remains. As I explored, I continued to believe I had to ask: Is Russ Kick a Shimerian? He has a tumblr. He tweets (where he says he is "avante garde old school." [Does that persuade you?]) Heck, there is an extensive wikipedia article about him. (Does that dissuade you?)  

What leads me to ask the question in this, Shimer-related part of the blogosphere are the following main points:

1. First and foremost, of course, is the list of works contained in the 3 volumes of the Graphic Canon. That is what attracted my attention in the first place. It seemed like such a Shimerish list. It includes such figure as: Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allen Poe, various Brontes and much much more. 

Why else? Because I find myself drawn to certain aspects of popular culture that re-represent similarly canonical figures (most especially, in my case, Freud or others appearing in murder mysteries, usually more social scientific in some ways, but still), I felt somehow validated seeing the review. (For Freud in popular culture, see everywhere around you, or click here for a related paper.) See, I thought to myself, there are good connections -- and a wide(r) readership than we sometimes think for such works, and thus a wider set of Shimerians or friends thereof. Hurrah! 

(Or, is this an unfounded belief, confirmed a bit like that well known phenomenon where, if you buy a redf car, you somehow start to see red cars everywhere?) 

2. As I explored beyond the confines of the graphic canon, I discovered, of course, that there is a lot more to know about Kick. He is best known, probably, for his work at a web site (now definct) called The Memory Work. And, thus, for his political work on the left.  Among the things he has done, which I knew but did not know: he was in part responsible for reintroducing us all to visual depictions of war dead. The presence of war dead in news casts of my youth mattered to me; in some ways they defined me. Their reintroduction, controversy and all, seems to me important. 

Here, as well as in his association with something called the Disinformation Company, Kick seems to be pressing on the notion of what counts as "open" -- a term which is used a lot around Shimer, and so this too made me wonder about his Shimerishness. While this particular version may be a tad (seriously) to one side of whatever political spectrum you believe defines our era, it is still, perhaps, part of the great conversation that is democracy. 

3. And then there are his other books. With titles focusing on things we are not supposed to know as well as anthologies around major topics like death (not to mention the canon itself), Kick seems, here as well, to push on opennesses door.  

Yet, most crucially, there is the graphic canon. Here are a few of his words in that regard: -- yes, you have to click -- the link is to his related blog site. 

Here he is, probably long excoriated by many proponents of the "Western Canon"  not to mention many oponents of the "wester Canon" -- creating new ways into those same texts for new generations and new people. Kick may be a walking -- and certainly a writing -- paradox. I admit -- I find some of his writings deeply troubling; deeply deeply troubling. I do not know what to make of him. I do, though, like thr graphic canon. Thought provoking -- totally. Of course, I should note the publisher, and it is Seven Stories Press. 

Of course, this is all about the meta-question: what exactly counts as Shimerian anyway? But it is also about the grsphic canon -- which reminds us that many many people out there are reading away in new ways and encountering books we'd like to discuss with them. The fact that Kick was once associated with a blog called Books Are People too, perhaps, says it all. Or does it? 

Ruminations? 

 

Glee?

No, I do not mean the television show, Glee. What I am raising, instead, is the place of laughter, joy, humor in relation to our joint enterprise: liberal education. The topic is a paradoxically serious one. Must liberal education be ponderously serious? Must great books education be somber? I think not. Part of the reason I believe this is my experience of Shimer -- where the utmost seriousness is combined with a significant sense of humor. But there is more, much more, to why I raise the question, "Glee?" 

Many years ago, I read a book by Peter Berger (someone whose social constructionist work is read in Shimer's great books curriculum and appears on many sociology syllabi across the United States and elsewhere), entitled The Heretical Imperative. In this 1979 book, Berger conjoins his (methodologically atheist) sociological hat with his (Lutheran) theological impulses (as he does in other work such as A Rumor of Angels).  Among other things, Berger argues for a variety of laughter as a bit of insight into what reaches beyond the human enterprise and gestures toward the  divine.  (For a review symposium on The Heretical Imperative, click here.) That I can remember (or, perhaps misremember) this decades after reading the book in graduate school is part of why the question "Glee?" seems so important to me. (Truth in advertising: Berger did write a subsequent book entitled Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience (1997). I have not read it. Have you? Please share.) 

Why else "Glee"? I have always loved Freud's book  Jokes and their relation to the unconscious but that has absolutely nothing to do with why I am asking the question "Glee?" For those of you who know German well -- is it true, is the book funny? My German was never good enough to tell. 

In any case, there is a  serious reason why I am writing about laughter, humor, and related matters here, on this blog about higher education. And that is because I think one of the ends of education (note that I am not saying outcomes) is a meaningful life and meaningful work, both of which I also associate with humor. While I am not religious (or even spiritual, really), I am a scholar of religion. And, so I picked up a book recently which has contributed to my thinking about all this. The book? Between Heaven and Mirth by James Martin, S.J.  (For more on him, click here.) As I read, I substituted the phrase "higher education" and then "liberal education" and then "Shimer College" for religion. Hmmm, I thought. 

And, I noticed a whole array of "great book" types cited by Martin - from Aristotle to Aquinas, from Martin Luther to Martin Luther King (not to mention Macchiavelli). Dorothy Day and Teresa of Avilla appeared in their humorous forms. 

While I am not writing about the comic, nor exactly about jokes, I am asking: must what higher education accomplishes be ponderous? I offer a hearty NO to that question. In my view, homo academicus (for a review of Bourdieu's book of this title, click here) and homo ludens are not opponents -- but friends -- unexpected allies even. (And, I am returning to jot here, that I wrote this before beginning our social reading of Utopia together. Duncombe's introduction raises related issues.) 

Homo ludens? Yes even play is important. Huizinga's work of that title reminds us that man (and I presume woman) plays. Think Shimer (and education more broadly) -- think riddles and puzzles and the "magic" of knowing. (Or, for a revisiting of Huizinga's work click here. Or, for a discussion of hte playful and the serious, try here.)  

And you?  Is there glee in your learning? If not, why not?