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Very interesting post on The Valve about the future of humanities scholarship, the academic press, tenure, and alternative media (a.k.a. the InterWebs). A taste:
It’s worth beginning with a somewhat prior question about the future of the academic book, however: whether the fetishization of the monograph as the gold standard of publishing in the humanities is misguided in and of itself, not simply in the ways that such an obsessive focus obscures other worthy forms of scholarship (most notably the article), but also in its failure to recognize that the book might simply not be the best form for scholarly communication in the first place. Not long ago, I overheard a colleague tell a student that scholarly books are not meant to be read but rather consulted. If this is how we consume research in the humanities—read the book’s introduction for the overall argument; read the chapter that most clearly applies to our own questions for the detailed analysis—then is the production of the book itself no more than a vanity?
Read "On the Future of Academic Publishing, Peer Review, and Tenure Requirements"
You are Michel Foucault! You wrote groundbreaking
histories of prisons, hospitals, asylums, and
sex. Interestingly, you thought basically the
same thing about all of them. Your historical
accuracy is a bit dodgy, but that was never
really the point. You were very obsessed with
power roles - so obsessed that you frequented
gay S&M clubs, and died of AIDS in 1984.
What 20th Century Theorist are you?brought to you by Quizilla
So--I'm not post-modernism's biggest fan. But I don't totally buy into the Stuckists. Some of their assertions I totally agree with:
"Post Modernism, in its adolescent attempt to ape the clever and witty in modern art, has shown itself to be lost in a cul-de-sac of idiocy. What was once a searching and provocative process (as Dadaism) has given way to trite cleverness for commercial exploitation."
but they have a really (un?)educated naivete which I find disturbing. The first point on their manifesto:
"Stuckism is the quest for authenticity. By removing the mask of cleverness and admitting where we are, the Stuckist allows him/herself uncensored expression."
Maybe I've been reading literary theory for too long--this makes me all, "Althusser, mofos, 1970, you can't escape interpellation into an ideology." Writing a manifesto about 20th C theories of aesthetics without a basic reading of 20th C theory? Makes you look foolish. Also the name. Also this: "It is the Stuckist’s duty to explore his/her neurosis and innocence through the making of paintings and displaying them in public, thereby enriching society by giving shared form to individual experience and an individual form to shared experience."
Also, it makes me look foolish by turning me into an old lady sighing about how people don't read anymore. Stupid post-modernism, this is all your fault!
