Comments on: On “literariness” and “the ethical state”

By: Nell Painter’s History of White People « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog

Nell Painter’s History of White People « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 21:36:39 +0000

[...] http://clarespark.com/2010/03/05/organic-conservatives-and-hitler/, http://clarespark.com/2009/11/22/on-literariness-and-the-ethical-state/. In other words, the progressives and Southern Agrarians were as enamored of “Anglo-Saxon” [...]

By: Literary criticism, Ravitch variant « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog

Literary criticism, Ravitch variant « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:22:16 +0000

[...] plea for literariness is reactionary, but it does line her up with the moderates I dissected here: http://clarespark.com/2009/11/22/on-literariness-and-the-ethical-state/. So, in spite of her oeuvre standing athwart the general protocols of moderate progressives, Ravitch [...]

By: When did “modernism” begin? « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog

When did “modernism” begin? « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 20:36:42 +0000

[...] so influential in the reconstruction of the humanities curriculum in the late 1930s, please read http://clarespark.com/2009/11/22/on-literariness-and-the-ethical-state/. You will see why my radio caller was afraid to be identified, even by his first name. Leave a [...]

By: Hamburger’s Separation of Church and State « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 21:53:45 +0000

[...] http://clarespark.com/2009/07/04/unfinished-revolutions-and-contested-notions-of-identity/. ) Also http://clarespark.com/2009/11/22/on-literariness-and-the-ethical-state/. It will be clear that Hamburger is an advocate of the “living Constitution” that [...]

By: Three moderates: Judt, Posner, Ware « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog

Three moderates: Judt, Posner, Ware « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:18:46 +0000

[...] in the late 1930s and early 1940s. I wrote about them as protofascists/ organic conservatives here: http://clarespark.com/2009/11/22/on-literariness-and-the-ethical-state/, and before that in Hunting Captain Ahab: Psychological Warfare and the Melville Revival. Some of [...]

By: Three famous moderates: Judt, Posner, Ware « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog

Three famous moderates: Judt, Posner, Ware « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:58:46 +0000

By: Assimilation and citizenship in a democratic republic « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:08:51 +0000

[...] At no point does the author define his terms, and though he is a sociologist, well-acquainted with such distinctions as the rooted versus the rootless cosmopolitan, or gemeinschaft versus gesellschaft, he does not confront the problem of citizenship in a democratic republic: i.e., the necessity for the individual to vote from a standpoint of knowledge, rationality and deep immersion in the policy issues that will determine the course of her life. At no point, does Kaufmann, himself the product of mixed ‘races’, rank the West or the politically libertarian heritage of Britain as possibly superior to competing political arrangements. Hence assimilation for him is simply a rupture with the family of origin and submission to the hegemony of an alien ethnic group (I think he means the Hebraic Protestants of New England), rather than the absolutely imperative reconfiguration of what we think of as family loyalty in a situation where emancipation from the dead hand of the past is a possibility. As I have said before here, either we teach the critical processes necessary for popular sovereignty or we turn tail and return to an oligarchy masked as democracy. (See my blog on the Southern Agrarians and their role in reconstructing the humanities curriculum in the late 1930s. http://clarespark.com/2009/11/22/on-literariness-and-the-ethical-state/) [...]

By: Assimilation in a democratic republic « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog

Assimilation in a democratic republic « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:34:12 +0000

By: clarespark

clarespark — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:05:49 +0000

You refer to the last paragraph, in which I note that the Southern Agrarians are being rehabilitated. This was written during the last stage of book production for Hunting Captain Ahab, a book first published in 2001. Can you point to a movement within literary history that has swept these works aside? And have others noted the oddities of Terry Eagleton’s very popular book on Literary Theory?

By: Swill to Power

Swill to Power — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:37:29 +0000

Books from 1976, 1993, and 1997 (two from LSU press) are “recent”? In any case, I think you’ll find that in literary studies, anyway, the idea that the Agrarians were openly racist, etc. to be uncontroversial. The question of the extent to which certain aesthetic / critical criteria (e.g., formalism) are to be viewed as an index of political sympathies, well, that’s a bit stickier…