Pitching a tedious fit about putative shortage of black authors.… Read the rest
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Spin Doctors as Shy as Water Voles
May 23rd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘In The Thick Of It’ doesn’t describe today’s New Labour all that well.… Read the rest
Rahila Khan and Toby Forward
May 23rd, 2005 2:51 am | By Ophelia BensonMore teasing of the Literary ‘what did I just say?’ Theory mafia, thanks to another link-donation by Allen Esterson. Terry Eagleton was doing his bit all the way back in 1999 – surely before After Theory was even a file on Eagelton’s computer.
… Read the restGayatri Spivak remarks with some justification in this book that a good deal of US post-colonial theory is ‘bogus’, but this gesture is de rigueur when it comes to one post-colonial critic writing about the rest. Besides, for a ‘Third World’ theorist to break this news to her American colleagues is in one sense deeply unwelcome, and in another sense exactly what they want to hear. Nothing is more voguish in guilt-ridden US academia than to point
Paul Ricoeur
May 22nd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘The entire European humanist tradition is mourning one of its most talented spokesmen.’… Read the rest
Paul Ricoeur
May 22nd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPrime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin: ‘We lose today more than a philosopher.’… Read the rest
Groningen Headmaster Sent Home to Cool Off
May 22nd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTeachers cannot simply tell classes humans are descended from apes.… Read the rest
Rahila Khan Actually Rev. Toby Forward
May 22nd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBut that’s only the beginning.… Read the rest
Will Leftish Xians Overtake the Rightish Variety?
May 22nd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWill social justice become more of an issue than sex and abortion? No.… Read the rest
Cool Hip Porn
May 22nd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonStarring women who are ‘comfortable with their sexuality’ and can ‘express themselves’.… Read the rest
Natasha Walter on Porn and Feminism
May 22nd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMaybe an aggressively reductive view of women does do some damage after all.… Read the rest
Genetic Research More Important Than Man United?
May 22nd, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJames Watson blasts UK for ‘piss poor’ approach to stem cell research.… Read the rest
Grue-ish Puffer Fish
May 20th, 2005 8:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonA brief follow-up on matters of Literary Theory, and eloquence, and the Naming of Departments, and slavering mutual admiration among Theorists, and whither Theory, and which would you rather have as your one and only book on a desert island where you had to live for fifteen years and three weeks with only a rusty knife and a red cusion with ‘1962 World’s Fair’ embroidered on it in cerulean silk thread to keep you company and help you survive – one book by William Empson or several hundred (different) books by Judith Butler.
Allen Esterson alerted us in comments to this gorgeous page at Columbia – full of people trying to outdo each other in saying slobberingly sycophantic things about … Read the rest
California Diocesan Documents Show Cover-up
May 20th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCatholic church officials transferred accused priests, ignored parental complaints.… Read the rest
Irshad Manji Against Routinely Low Expectations
May 20th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAnd assumption that challenging a group’s religious convictions equals undermining their dignity. … Read the rest
Graham Larkin on Horowitz’ Research Breakthrough
May 20th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt has to do with a Network.… Read the rest
Christian Groups Wonder About Free Speech
May 20th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Freedom of expression should never be sufficient reason to attack the values of any section of the community.’… Read the rest
Return of the Repressed
May 20th, 2005 2:36 am | By Ophelia BensonYou may remember, I had to bring my loving look at the work of Judith Halberstam to a premature close the other day, because I’d gone on and on and on about it and was still less than halfway through, and the day was over and darkness was beginning to creep over the land, and I had things to do, and the bailiff was at the door, and the orphans were calling for their soup, and the rain was coming in the roof –
So I had to stop. But it troubled me. I have to tell you, honest readers, it troubled me. I felt I had left my work half-done. I felt I had left a duty unfulfilled. I … Read the rest
Edward Skidelsky Reviews Simon Blackburn
May 19th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTruth, reason, objectivity survive the demolition work of Nietzsche and James.… Read the rest
In Our Time Does ‘Greatest Philosopher’ Poll
May 19th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPlato? Kant? Alain de Botton? Nominate, vote.… Read the rest
Simon Singh on ‘What the Bleep Do We Know’
May 19th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMovie claims to be about quantum physics but is complete bollocks.… Read the rest