Michael Berube says, "Coordinate the Hate."

Not JUST The Party of No but also the The Party of Hate.

Berube's blog is always worth checking out.

I'm in the middle of reading Berube's  book of essays, Rhetorical Occasions, which cost $19.95 on my Kindle. That's quite a lot, but I'm willing to pay it for such a terrific read. Reading what he says and how he says it make this book worth the money for anyone who is involved, or should I say "implicated" in public higher education in the humanities. This is a matter I pursue with great interest, although I have no dog in this fight any more, so to speak.

Comments

[Kay Dennison]

Sounds good!!!!!! I will put it on my list.

[naomi dagen bloom]

Berube does not ring bells for me. His approach strikes me as special language stuff--academic. Glad his writing makes you happy...would love to find thinker that could excite me as much.

[Hattie]

Kay: I like Berube for all kinds of reasons. You might want to look at *Life as We Know It* his book about Jamie, his son who has Down Syndrome.
Naomi: Can't say I agree that Berube is overspecialized. He's anything but a cloistered academic! I don't always share his notions about politics, but otherwise I really relate to what he says.

[Brandon]

I posted a link to an article, "Updated: Norman Leboon Charged with Threatening to Kill Cantor and His Family", http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2010/03/post_662.html
at MichaelBerube.com under the name schoollyb. Unless I start a different e-mail account, I won't post there again because e-mail addresses are revealed when one scrolls over the names.

[Hank Chapin]

I have a "dog in that fight," I suppose. But I feel like my hands are clean and my conscience is clear. I skipped all the deconstruction, French intellectuals and stuff li'dat. I talked about good literature to students. That was my method pure and simple. It was easy. I developed my own philosophy stressing lit as an aid in developing empathy and the MORAL IMAGINATION

Don't know how I managed it, actually, except maybe there never was much of a market for that stuff, and when I was in grad school, it was the New Criticism that reigned.

However, I'd like to now about Berube. I'm always interested in ideas.

[Hattie]

There were a lot of "holdouts" in my English Dept. at Portland State,a good thing for the most part. One prof was broadening his appeal to students by going in for S.F. and new agey stuff, some of it quite good, actually. The feminists were under constant attack, and I'll never forget the one prof who could not accept the idea that Virginia Wolff was a major writer. His field was Restoration Comedy (sans Aphra Behn) and (wait for it) James Barrie!
This dep't had a distinctive "flavor" at that time. Favorites were Ray Carver and Toby Wolff, who are now seeming a bit long in tooth (but aren't we all). Many students were way into Blake and the Romantic poets, in good part because a charismatic prof, one of those old-style chain-smoking academic feminists, was a Wordsworth and Coleridge scholar. Now, although very old, she's still teaching. Amazing woman.
I did feel sorry for one prof who was a Lawrence scholar. Lawrence's absurdities have dated him badly. Who could have foreseen that in the 50's, when this prof got his doctorate?
The dep't was quite varied and full of strong personalities and it was a great time for an older student like me.