The spectre of creeping exculpation, the discomfort of discontinuity, and more.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
The Arts and Cultural Diversity
Jun 15th, 2003 | By Jatinder VermaImmigrant, ethnic minority, asylum-seeker – slivers of insinuation separate
the meanings of each term in contemporary Britain. Ethnic minority, black and
Asian, cultural diversity – clouds of obfuscation have distinguished contemporary
arts in Britain over the past 30 years.
That I draw an analogy between socio-political and artistic terminology is
not incidental: socio-political concerns have determined arts-funding policy
for the past three decades. Ever since, in fact, the publication of Naseem Khan’s
seminal report for the Arts Council in 1976, ‘The Arts Britain Ignores’. This
year sees the launch of yet another arts initiative, designed to heap attention
on ‘culturally diverse’ arts, aptly titled ‘decibel’ (noise). Why do we need
a showcase of ethnic arts? And what noise is decibel… Read the rest
Bernard Williams 
Jun 14th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘He deconstructed as Derrida would do if he were cleverer and more pledged to truth,’ says the Guardian.… Read the rest
Williams in The Telegraph
Jun 13th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘He wanted a moral philosophy that was accountable not only to psychology but also to other branches of human enquiry, especially history.’… Read the rest
What the Koran Really Says
Jun 13th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Ibn Warraq calls for critical thought and a sceptical attitude in reading the Koran.… Read the rest
Nonsense, Not True, Made Up, Bollocks
Jun 12th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
David Aaronovitch on the looting of Iraq’s antiquities and how it was reported.… Read the rest
Judgment Is Not Censorship
Jun 11th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Student editors and Harvard English department not heroes but confused, says Stanley Fish.… Read the rest
The Tasaday
Jun 10th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Feuds within anthroplogy, questions about authenticity, palm leaves versus T shirts.… Read the rest
Alan Wolfe on ‘Diversity’
Jun 10th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
What Americans think diversity is and what they think it isn’t.… Read the rest
‘Watchdog’ versus Teachers’ Union
Jun 9th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Is it discrimination to exclude disabled students who cause problems?… Read the rest
‘Watchdog’ versus Teachers’ Union
Jun 9th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Is it discrimination to exclude disabled students who cause problems?… Read the rest
Hip, Relevant, In Your Face
Jun 8th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Entertaining, short, punchy, fast – poetry on tv. Next up: quantum mechanics lite.… Read the rest
News Because I Only Just Now Found It
Jun 7th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Francis Cornford’s Microcosmographia Academica.… Read the rest
Philosophers Useful After All?
Jun 7th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
They can serve as logical police, with non-contradiction for a nightstick.… Read the rest
The Arts on Television
Jun 7th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Why is coverage of the arts not as good as it once was on UK television? … Read the rest
What is Elitism?
Jun 6th, 2003 | By Ophelia BensonFashionable Nonsense is a fabric of many threads, a sea fed by many rivers, a library with many volumes, a dog with many fleas. But there are also a few themes or core assumptions that play a role – that are ‘foundational’ – in most if not all of these many mansions: anti-essentialism, anti-realism, relativism, pretensions to transgression and rebellion and épater-ing; projects of unmasking, exposing, demystifying – every FNer a Toto pulling back the curtain that hides the Wizard; concern with hidden agendas and concealed power drives; and various kinds of make-believe anti-elitism.
The elitism question is a complicated matter, not least because of the widely-observed paradox that claims of anti-elitism emanate from academics who write a language of … Read the rest
The N.Y. Times on the N.Y. Times
Jun 6th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Many reporters and editors were disaffected in wake of Blair and Bragg.… Read the rest
Two N.Y. Times Editors Resign
Jun 6th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd fall on swords in aftermath of Jayson Blair fraud.… Read the rest
Problematizing the Dominant Narrative
Jun 6th, 2003 12:54 am | By Ophelia BensonI do get to have fun, toiling and slaving here at the mills of B and W. I browse Google and sometimes I do find peculiar gems.
This one for example: a review of a book whose very title reeks of fashion: Dis/locating Cultures/Identitites, Traditions, and Third World Feminism. Got all that? You think the author stuffed enough Right On signposts in there for one title? The cute ‘Dis/locating,’ the buzzwords ‘cultures’ and ‘identities’ slammed together with that artful /, and finishing off with a flourish with Third World Feminism. There, that’s all the bases touched, Narayan must have thought in satisfaction. No one can say I don’t know the patois.
And that’s only the title, and only the … Read the rest
Guardians of the truth?
Jun 5th, 2003 5:35 pm | By Ophelia BensonIf you click on the Guardian story link in the ‘Post-Orientalism” entry below, you’ll find it doesn’t work. Here’s why – from the Guardian’s web site today:
… Read the restA report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading “Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil” misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, “The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil.” The sense was that the US had no economic
