(no subject)
Good news all around. I got a fantastic fellowship for the remainder of my Art History degree: four years of tuition remission, health care, and a nearly excessive stipend. I feel very glad because the award endorses my ability and demands that I persist in performing well. One condition is that I must quit my job, which is bittersweet because I am attached to the people and place, but it has been difficult to maintain so much work and school this year. Also, Nick was just accepted into an excellent theatre program in town!
I recently read Empire of Illusion (Hedges), which addressed this country's fondness for spectacle at the expense of literacy. It was learned but a polemic. The first chapter discussed reality television's societal premise and implications, and I'm not sure how I benefited from reading it. Hedges' descriptions of, e.g., Jerry Springer participants provided me a spectacle and a feeling of superiority, which helps no one. The third chapter, "The Illusion of Wisdom", was more germane to my experience because it focused on academia. The main point about universities' increasingly businesslike agenda may well be true, but I disagreed with the contention that academics use arcane jargon simply to keep knowledge esoteric. Research establishes knowledge and, in so doing, can require specialized methods and terminologies. Researchers should make their information available, at least after a reasonable period of time, and journalists, "popular" authors, curators, teachers, and citizens should be responsible for availing themselves of it.
I recently read Empire of Illusion (Hedges), which addressed this country's fondness for spectacle at the expense of literacy. It was learned but a polemic. The first chapter discussed reality television's societal premise and implications, and I'm not sure how I benefited from reading it. Hedges' descriptions of, e.g., Jerry Springer participants provided me a spectacle and a feeling of superiority, which helps no one. The third chapter, "The Illusion of Wisdom", was more germane to my experience because it focused on academia. The main point about universities' increasingly businesslike agenda may well be true, but I disagreed with the contention that academics use arcane jargon simply to keep knowledge esoteric. Research establishes knowledge and, in so doing, can require specialized methods and terminologies. Researchers should make their information available, at least after a reasonable period of time, and journalists, "popular" authors, curators, teachers, and citizens should be responsible for availing themselves of it.