Pub Date : 2024-06-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2024.a929664
Anthony Madrid
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> An Old Poem That Tells You How to Have Beautiful Children <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Anthony Madrid (bio) </li> </ul> <p>All right, you never heard of this one. And I don't blame you. It's called <em>Callipædia, or the Art of Getting Beautiful Children</em> ("Getting" as in begetting.)</p> <p>Originally written in Latin by a French doctor, Claude Quillet, and published in 1655. Translated into English many times, I'm told. It had a certain popularity, I'm told. But today? Utterly forgotten.</p> <p>Only reason I know about it is 'cuz of Nicholas Rowe. He's fairly forgotten as well, but he was a <em>big</em> deal, three hundred years ago. Poet Laureate of Great Britain. Author of several plays that held the stage for years after his death. Translator of Lucan's <em>Pharsalia</em>, Bruyère's <em>Characters</em>, Boileau's <em>Lutrin</em>. Writer of the first biography of Shakespeare. Important early editor of Shakespeare.</p> <p>Also, you know how occasionally a womanizer will be called a "Lothario"? That's 'cuz of Rowe's play <em>The Fair Penitent</em> (1702). Samuel Richardson's <em>Clarissa</em> owes a lot to that play.</p> <p>Anyhow, this Rowe translated Book I of the <em>Callipædia</em> (there are four books, in all). The English version to which Rowe contributed is more than twice as long as the original. I have a facsimile of the original right here, and the poem occupies fifty-two not-at-all-crowded pages. The English is a hundred and thirty-seven.</p> <p>That's actually fairly standard eighteenth-century translation praxis. The rhyming couplet offered the translator room to expand, clarify, and otherwise improve the original. Today, of course, any talk of "improving the original" is heresy, but it's good to be reminded occasionally that our assumptions about reading are not based on, shall we say, the laws of physics. Not everyone in history went to translations hoping to find <em>exactly</em> what the original writer said. In the eighteenth century it was quite reasonable to imagine that the English version of something might be quite a bit better than the original. Everyone could name examples of this. <strong>[End Page 55]</strong></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Fig 1. <p></p> <p>And it's not like <em>Callipædia</em> ever had the reputation of having been composed by a poetic genius. People were drawn to it, not because of Quillet's handling of neo-Latin hexameters, but because of the <em>information</em> the poem might contain. There was a porn possibility.</p> <p>Remember: Europeans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries hadn't heard of the <em>Kama Sutra</em> yet. They <em>needed</em> one as much as anybody; good information was even more scarce then than it is now. And they also needed some kind (<em>any</em> kind) of excuse for thinking about sex. You don't want your kids to b
{"title":"An Old Poem That Tells You How to Have Beautiful Children","authors":"Anthony Madrid","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929664","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929664","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> An Old Poem That Tells You How to Have Beautiful Children <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Anthony Madrid (bio) </li> </ul> <p>All right, you never heard of this one. And I don't blame you. It's called <em>Callipædia, or the Art of Getting Beautiful Children</em> (\"Getting\" as in begetting.)</p> <p>Originally written in Latin by a French doctor, Claude Quillet, and published in 1655. Translated into English many times, I'm told. It had a certain popularity, I'm told. But today? Utterly forgotten.</p> <p>Only reason I know about it is 'cuz of Nicholas Rowe. He's fairly forgotten as well, but he was a <em>big</em> deal, three hundred years ago. Poet Laureate of Great Britain. Author of several plays that held the stage for years after his death. Translator of Lucan's <em>Pharsalia</em>, Bruyère's <em>Characters</em>, Boileau's <em>Lutrin</em>. Writer of the first biography of Shakespeare. Important early editor of Shakespeare.</p> <p>Also, you know how occasionally a womanizer will be called a \"Lothario\"? That's 'cuz of Rowe's play <em>The Fair Penitent</em> (1702). Samuel Richardson's <em>Clarissa</em> owes a lot to that play.</p> <p>Anyhow, this Rowe translated Book I of the <em>Callipædia</em> (there are four books, in all). The English version to which Rowe contributed is more than twice as long as the original. I have a facsimile of the original right here, and the poem occupies fifty-two not-at-all-crowded pages. The English is a hundred and thirty-seven.</p> <p>That's actually fairly standard eighteenth-century translation praxis. The rhyming couplet offered the translator room to expand, clarify, and otherwise improve the original. Today, of course, any talk of \"improving the original\" is heresy, but it's good to be reminded occasionally that our assumptions about reading are not based on, shall we say, the laws of physics. Not everyone in history went to translations hoping to find <em>exactly</em> what the original writer said. In the eighteenth century it was quite reasonable to imagine that the English version of something might be quite a bit better than the original. Everyone could name examples of this. <strong>[End Page 55]</strong></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Fig 1. <p></p> <p>And it's not like <em>Callipædia</em> ever had the reputation of having been composed by a poetic genius. People were drawn to it, not because of Quillet's handling of neo-Latin hexameters, but because of the <em>information</em> the poem might contain. There was a porn possibility.</p> <p>Remember: Europeans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries hadn't heard of the <em>Kama Sutra</em> yet. They <em>needed</em> one as much as anybody; good information was even more scarce then than it is now. And they also needed some kind (<em>any</em> kind) of excuse for thinking about sex. You don't want your kids to b","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141516013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2024.a929652
Jeffrey R. Di Leo
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> The Last Dictionary <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Jeffrey R. Di Leo (bio) </li> </ul> <blockquote> <p><strong>dictionary</strong>, <em>n</em>. [c. 1480–] 1.a. A book which explains or translates, usually in alphabetical order, the words of a language or languages (or of a particular category of vocabulary), giving for each word its typical spelling, an explanation of its meaning or meanings, and often other information, such as pronunciation, etymology, synonyms, equivalents in other languages, and illustrative examples. Also (from the late 20th cent.): an electronic resource performing this function. Cf. lexicon <em>n</em>., wordbook <em>n</em>.</p> —<em>Oxford English Dictionary</em> (online) </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><strong>last dictionary</strong>, <em>n</em>. [2024–] The last book that explained or translated, usually in alphabetical order, the words of a language or languages (or of a particular category of vocabulary), and gave for each word its typical spelling, an explanation of its meaning or meanings, and often other information, such as pronunciation, etymology, synonyms, equivalents in other languages, and illustrative examples. Replaced in the 21st century by an electronic resource performing this function. Cf. dictionary <em>n</em>.</p> —a future addition to the <em>Oxford English Dictionary</em> (online) </blockquote> <p>There is a dictionary for everything—except every word in the English language.</p> <p>For some, the <small>lexicographical maniacs</small>, such a dictionary is the Holy Grail of lexicography. They dream of a space where the entirety of the English language is accessible through a dictionary the likes of which the world has never seen. It is a dictionary with an entry for every word that has ever been used by anyone in the English language. This includes not only formal and informal writing from books to blogs but also any and all verbal acts from music to marketing. Its principle of inclusion is that no word used in the English language will be excluded from it. In short, this very long dictionary would be a dictionary without gatekeepers who agonize over what words should be included and excluded. <strong>[End Page ix]</strong></p> <p>For others, however, this dream amounts to a complete deconstruction of the role of the dictionary in lexicography. Dictionaries are about gatekeepers. These gatekeepers are lexicographers who determine whether a word should be in the dictionary. <em>The Oxford English Dictionary</em> (OED), for example, has had upwards of eighty lexicographers working on its forthcoming third edition. A large part of their job is to determine what words need to be added to this dictionary. It is a task these lexicographers take very seriously. As evidence of the gravitas of this decision, consider that it can take up to five years to add a new word to the OED.</p> <p>"Y
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要： The Last Dictionary Jeffrey R. Di Leo (bio) 词典，n. [约 1480-] 1.a. 通常按字母顺序解释或翻译一种或多种语言（或某一类词汇）的词语，给出每个词的典型拼写、词义解释，通常还提供其他信息，如发音、词源、同义词、其他语言中的对应词和示例。另外（从 20 世纪末开始）：具有这种功能的电子资源。参见词典 n.、单词书 n.-《牛津英语词典》（在线） 最后一本字典，n. [2024-] 通常按字母顺序解释或翻译一种或多种语言（或某一类词汇）中的单词，并给出每个单词的典型拼写、词义解释以及其他信息，如发音、词源、同义词、其他语言中的对等词和例证的最后一本书。在 21 世纪，这一功能被电子资源取代。牛津英语词典》（在线）的未来增补 除了英语中的每一个单词之外，每件事都有一本词典。对于某些词典狂人来说，这样的词典是词典学的圣杯。他们梦想着有一个空间，通过一本世界上从未见过的字典，可以查到所有的英语词汇。这本字典收录了任何人在英语中使用过的每一个单词。这不仅包括从书籍到博客的正式和非正式写作，还包括从音乐到营销的所有语言行为。其收录原则是，英语中使用的任何单词都不会被排除在词典之外。简而言之，这本很长的词典将是一本没有把关人的词典，把关人不会纠结于哪些词该收录，哪些词不该收录。[第 ix 页末] 然而，对其他人来说，这个梦想相当于彻底解构词典在词汇学中的作用。词典是把关人。这些把关人是词典编纂者，他们决定一个词是否应被收录到词典中。例如，《牛津英语词典》（OED）有多达八十多位词典编纂者为即将出版的第三版词典工作。他们的大部分工作是确定哪些词需要加入词典。这些词典编纂者非常认真地对待这项任务。为了证明这一决定的严肃性，可以考虑一下，将一个新词加入 OED 可能需要长达五年的时间。"简-约翰逊（Jane Johnson）说："你可以为在词典中收录任何词条提出理由。"她接着说："这只是优先顺序的问题。约翰逊作为《词典》第三版的新词编辑，部分工作就是帮助她的编辑团队确定这些优先事项。"她说："你必须找出哪些词看起来最有价值。至少就《词典》而言，决定是否将一个新词加入词典的优先顺序和价值涉及使用情况。如果一个词只用过一两次，那么无论谁用过这个词，它都不会被收录到《OED》中。但如果一个词的使用量开始增加，那么它就会开始吸引像约翰逊这样的《OED》把关人的注意。那么，多少使用率才算足够？在什么情况下，词性排斥会让位于词性收录？"菲奥娜-麦克弗森（Fiona McPherson）说："没有一个神奇的数字。"这不是说，'好吧，我们有十个例子，所以我们要看看'。自 1997 年以来一直担任 OED 词典编纂员的麦克弗森认为，这取决于一个词使用的 "广度和深度"。如果一个词被广泛使用，并开始在用法上扎根，那么它就值得考虑纳入。但即便如此，收录的道路也是艰辛而不确定的。该词的用法不仅需要引起把关人的注意，还必须成为他们的优先事项。举个例子，比如 "always already "这个短语。这个词用于...
{"title":"The Last Dictionary","authors":"Jeffrey R. Di Leo","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929652","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> The Last Dictionary <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Jeffrey R. Di Leo (bio) </li> </ul> <blockquote> <p><strong>dictionary</strong>, <em>n</em>. [c. 1480–] 1.a. A book which explains or translates, usually in alphabetical order, the words of a language or languages (or of a particular category of vocabulary), giving for each word its typical spelling, an explanation of its meaning or meanings, and often other information, such as pronunciation, etymology, synonyms, equivalents in other languages, and illustrative examples. Also (from the late 20th cent.): an electronic resource performing this function. Cf. lexicon <em>n</em>., wordbook <em>n</em>.</p> —<em>Oxford English Dictionary</em> (online) </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><strong>last dictionary</strong>, <em>n</em>. [2024–] The last book that explained or translated, usually in alphabetical order, the words of a language or languages (or of a particular category of vocabulary), and gave for each word its typical spelling, an explanation of its meaning or meanings, and often other information, such as pronunciation, etymology, synonyms, equivalents in other languages, and illustrative examples. Replaced in the 21st century by an electronic resource performing this function. Cf. dictionary <em>n</em>.</p> —a future addition to the <em>Oxford English Dictionary</em> (online) </blockquote> <p>There is a dictionary for everything—except every word in the English language.</p> <p>For some, the <small>lexicographical maniacs</small>, such a dictionary is the Holy Grail of lexicography. They dream of a space where the entirety of the English language is accessible through a dictionary the likes of which the world has never seen. It is a dictionary with an entry for every word that has ever been used by anyone in the English language. This includes not only formal and informal writing from books to blogs but also any and all verbal acts from music to marketing. Its principle of inclusion is that no word used in the English language will be excluded from it. In short, this very long dictionary would be a dictionary without gatekeepers who agonize over what words should be included and excluded. <strong>[End Page ix]</strong></p> <p>For others, however, this dream amounts to a complete deconstruction of the role of the dictionary in lexicography. Dictionaries are about gatekeepers. These gatekeepers are lexicographers who determine whether a word should be in the dictionary. <em>The Oxford English Dictionary</em> (OED), for example, has had upwards of eighty lexicographers working on its forthcoming third edition. A large part of their job is to determine what words need to be added to this dictionary. It is a task these lexicographers take very seriously. As evidence of the gravitas of this decision, consider that it can take up to five years to add a new word to the OED.</p> <p>\"Y","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141529427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2024.a929674
Kathryn Weld
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear: Selected Poems</em> by Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Kathryn Weld (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>the country where everyone's name is fear: selected poems</small></em><br/> Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky<br/> Edited by Katie Ferris and Ilya Kaminsky<br/> Lost Horse Press<br/> https://losthorsepress.org/catalog/the-country-where-everyones-name-is-fear-selected-poems/<br/> 126 pages; Print, $20.00 <p>In 2017, Lost Horse Press established a dual-language series of poetry by important contemporary Ukrainian poets. <em>The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear</em>, by Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky, edited by Katie Ferris and Ilya Kaminsky, is the ninth volume in this series. These poems remind us of the role of the poet during times of war, in the particular context of the Ukrainian struggle for independence.</p> <p>The reader will remember that the Russo-Ukrainian War is now more than a decade old, having begun after the Revolution of Dignity (February 2014), which ousted the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, and overthrew the Ukrainian government, and was immediately followed by the Russian annexation of the Crimea. During the eight subsequent years, Russia supported separatists in the Donbas region in armed conflict, naval attacks, and cyberwarfare. In February 2022, while Lost Horse Press was preparing for the book release, the war entered a phase of major escalation with the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia. The poems in <em>The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear</em> bear witness to nearly a decade of war.</p> <p>The English portion of this dual-language publication is lean, featuring <strong>[End Page 106]</strong> only fifteen poems by Ludmila Khersonsky and fourteen by Boris Khersonsky. Nevertheless, this sampling is more than enough to reveal the stark desperation of current times in Ukraine, where "explosions are the new normal, you grow used to them / stop noticing that you, with your ordinary ways are a goner." There are hints that this myopia is a human condition, even when a people are mired in crisis: "against the background of lies, it's not apparent that we're also liars."</p> <p>How to describe this, and what is the weight of that role as witness? Ludmila, in "How to Describe," tells us:</p> <blockquote> <p><span>a man who turned to the wall, weary of war.</span><span>Ear of the war: so much noise from a single man,</span><span>as if a whale was birthed into a common shell,</span><span>as if fear was trapped in the heart's punchbag.</span><span>A lonely human is dust.</span><span>Where to run from dust?</span></p> </blockquote> <p>An award-winning lyric poet and translator, Ludmila Khersonsky was born in Moldavia. She has published three volumes of poetry, a fourth is forthcoming from Arrowsmith Press. Her
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要：评论者 每个人的名字都是恐惧的国度：鲍里斯和柳德米拉-赫尔松斯基诗选 凯瑟琳-韦尔德（简历） 每个人的名字都是恐惧的国度：鲍里斯和柳德米拉-赫尔松斯基诗选 由凯蒂-费里斯和伊利亚-卡明斯基编辑 Lost Horse Press https://losthorsepress.org/catalog/the-country-where-everyones-name-is-fear-selected-poems/ 126 页；印刷版，20.00 美元 2017 年，Lost Horse Press 建立了一个双语系列，收录当代乌克兰重要诗人的诗作。鲍里斯和柳德米拉-赫尔松斯基（Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky）的作品《每个人的名字都是恐惧的国家》（The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear）由凯蒂-费里斯（Katie Ferris）和伊利亚-卡明斯基（Ilya Kaminsky）编辑，是该系列的第九卷。这些诗歌提醒我们，在乌克兰争取独立的特殊背景下，诗人在战争时期所扮演的角色。读者应该还记得，俄乌战争始于 "尊严革命"（2014 年 2 月），推翻了乌克兰民选总统维克托-亚努科维奇，推翻了乌克兰政府，紧接着俄罗斯吞并了克里米亚。在随后的八年中，俄罗斯在武装冲突、海上袭击和网络战中支持顿巴斯地区的分离主义分子。2022 年 2 月，就在失落的马出版社为新书发行做准备时，随着俄罗斯入侵乌克兰，战争进入重大升级阶段。每个人的名字都是恐惧的国家》中的诗歌见证了近十年的战争。这本双语出版物的英文部分较少，仅收录了柳德米拉-赫尔松斯基 (Ludmila Khersonsky) 的 15 首诗和鲍里斯-赫尔松斯基 (Boris Khersonsky) 的 14 首诗。尽管如此，这些诗作足以揭示乌克兰当下的严酷绝望，"爆炸是新常态，你已习以为常/不再注意到你，以你的普通方式，已是一个死人"。有迹象表明，即使一个民族深陷危机，这种近视也是人类的通病："在谎言的背景下，看不出我们也是骗子"。如何描述这一点，见证者的角色又有多重？柳德米拉在《如何描述》中告诉我们：一个人转向墙壁，厌倦了战争。"战争之耳"：一个人发出如此多的噪音，仿佛鲸鱼被孕育在一个普通的贝壳中，仿佛恐惧被困在心脏的拳击袋中。"孤独的人类是尘埃。"从尘埃中逃往何处？ 柳德米拉-赫尔松斯基（Ludmila Khersonsky）出生于摩尔达维亚，是一位屡获殊荣的抒情诗人和翻译家。她已出版三部诗集，第四部即将由 Arrowsmith Press 出版。她的丈夫兼合著者鲍里斯-赫尔松斯基曾接受神经病学培训，在敖德萨行医，并在敖德萨国立大学教授临床心理学。他们的写作主题相似，但风格迥异：柳德米拉的作品注重抒情和个人情感，而鲍里斯的作品则具有历史视角和文化背景。当鲍里斯作为一个三十多岁的年轻人，第一次得知他的家族有四十二人在大屠杀中丧生时，他开始为这些逝去的亲人的生活写诗。在 2015 年接受《纽约时报》采访时，他说只有在改革开放后才有可能出版。2006 年在莫斯科出版的《家庭相册》让他一举成名。作为在苏联传播另类、非主流文学的萨米兹达特运动的成员，到苏联解体时，鲍里斯已经出版了多卷俄语诗集。在 2014 年乌克兰遭受入侵时，他放弃使用母语俄语，改用乌克兰语，以示声援。[语言及其丧失是两位诗人的主题。柳德米拉的标题诗告诫人们："盲目的双脚： 盲目的双脚。不要回头。不要回头。如果你回头看，我的勇士：如果我的勇士，你回头看，我的勇士：当你到达一个新的目的地时，你什么也不说，他们什么也不会从你身上学到：他们会学到什么是一无所有。 关于同样的主题，鲍里斯写道：我带着口音读书，我无法打开......
{"title":"The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear: Selected Poems by Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky (review)","authors":"Kathryn Weld","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929674","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear: Selected Poems</em> by Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Kathryn Weld (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>the country where everyone's name is fear: selected poems</small></em><br/> Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky<br/> Edited by Katie Ferris and Ilya Kaminsky<br/> Lost Horse Press<br/> https://losthorsepress.org/catalog/the-country-where-everyones-name-is-fear-selected-poems/<br/> 126 pages; Print, $20.00 <p>In 2017, Lost Horse Press established a dual-language series of poetry by important contemporary Ukrainian poets. <em>The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear</em>, by Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky, edited by Katie Ferris and Ilya Kaminsky, is the ninth volume in this series. These poems remind us of the role of the poet during times of war, in the particular context of the Ukrainian struggle for independence.</p> <p>The reader will remember that the Russo-Ukrainian War is now more than a decade old, having begun after the Revolution of Dignity (February 2014), which ousted the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, and overthrew the Ukrainian government, and was immediately followed by the Russian annexation of the Crimea. During the eight subsequent years, Russia supported separatists in the Donbas region in armed conflict, naval attacks, and cyberwarfare. In February 2022, while Lost Horse Press was preparing for the book release, the war entered a phase of major escalation with the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia. The poems in <em>The Country Where Everyone's Name Is Fear</em> bear witness to nearly a decade of war.</p> <p>The English portion of this dual-language publication is lean, featuring <strong>[End Page 106]</strong> only fifteen poems by Ludmila Khersonsky and fourteen by Boris Khersonsky. Nevertheless, this sampling is more than enough to reveal the stark desperation of current times in Ukraine, where \"explosions are the new normal, you grow used to them / stop noticing that you, with your ordinary ways are a goner.\" There are hints that this myopia is a human condition, even when a people are mired in crisis: \"against the background of lies, it's not apparent that we're also liars.\"</p> <p>How to describe this, and what is the weight of that role as witness? Ludmila, in \"How to Describe,\" tells us:</p> <blockquote> <p><span>a man who turned to the wall, weary of war.</span><span>Ear of the war: so much noise from a single man,</span><span>as if a whale was birthed into a common shell,</span><span>as if fear was trapped in the heart's punchbag.</span><span>A lonely human is dust.</span><span>Where to run from dust?</span></p> </blockquote> <p>An award-winning lyric poet and translator, Ludmila Khersonsky was born in Moldavia. She has published three volumes of poetry, a fourth is forthcoming from Arrowsmith Press. Her ","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141530946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2024.a929655
Clare Birchall, Peter Knight
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> It's the Algorithm, Stupid! <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Clare Birchall (bio) and Peter Knight (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>alt-america: the rise of the radical right in the age of trump</small></em><br/> David Neiwert<br/> Verso<br/> https://www.versobooks.com/books/2801-alt-america<br/> 464 pages; Print, $19.95 <em><small>red pill, blue pill: how to counteract the conspiracy theories that are killing us</small></em><br/> David Neiwert<br/> Rowman & Littlefield<br/> https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781633886261/Red-Pill-Blue-Pill-How-to-Counteract-the-Conspiracy-Theories-That-Are-Killing-Us<br/> 232 pages; Print, $28.95 <em><small>social warming: the dangerous and polarising effects of social media</small></em><br/> Charles Arthur<br/> Oneworld Publications<br/> https://oneworld-publications.com/work/social-warming/<br/> 352 pages; Print, $18.95 <em><small>the chaos machine: the inside story of how social media rewired our minds and our world</small></em><br/> Max Fisher<br/> Quercus Publishing<br/> https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/titles/max-fisher/the-chaos-machine/9781529416367/<br/> 352 pages; Print, $29.00 <em><small>they knew: how a culture of conspiracy keeps america complacent</small></em><br/> Sarah Kendzior<br/> Flatiron Books<br/> https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/sarah-kendzior/<br/> 256 pages; Print, $29.99 <p><strong>[End Page 10]</strong></p> <p>What drives the visibility and the virality of conspiracy theories in the United States and elsewhere today, especially in the online world? In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of QAnon, and the storming of the Capitol, many writers—both academics and journalists—have addressed this question in a flood of books. Some have focused on the increasing political polarization and the lurch to right-wing populism. Others have argued that our innate psychological weakness is now being exploited by manipulators both domestic and foreign. Some have suggested that the rise of conspiracism is an inevitable consequence of the financial incentives, technological affordances, and the libertarian ethos of social media companies. Some have even insisted that these conspiracy theories—no matter how seemingly bizarre—are an understandable response to the normalization of corruption and conspiracy in US political life.</p> <p>The journalist David Neiwert has been covering right-wing violent extremism in the United States for over two decades. In <em>Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump</em> (2017) and <em>Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us</em> (2022) he charts the history of how the alt-right and its ideology of white nationalism came to influence contemporary American politics, becoming not only mainstream but, with Trump as the conspiracy-monger-in-chief in the White House, no longer stigmatized. H
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要： 这是算法，笨蛋！ Clare Birchall (bio) and Peter Knight (bio) alt-america: the rise of the radical right in the age of trump David Neiwert Verso https://www.versobooks.com/books/2801-alt-america 464 pages; Print, $19.95 red pill, blue pill: how to counteract the conspiracy theories that are killing us David Neiwert Rowman & Littlefield https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781633886261/Red-Pill-Blue-Pill-How-to-Counteract-the-Conspiracy-Theories-That-Are-Killing-Us 232 pages; Print, $28.95 social warming: the dangerous and polarising effects of social media Charles Arthur Oneworld Publications https://oneworld-publications.com/work/social-warming/ 352 页；印刷版，18.95 美元 The chaos machine: the inside story of how social media rewired our minds and our world Max Fisher Quercus Publishing https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/titles/max-fisher/the-chaos-machine/9781529416367/ 352 页；印刷版，29.00 美元 They knew: how a culture of conspiracy keeps America complacent Sarah Kendzior Flatiron Books https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/sarah-kendzior/ 256 页；印刷版，29.99 美元 [End Page 10] 是什么促使阴谋论在当今美国和其他地方，尤其是在网络世界中大行其道？在 COVID-19 大流行、QAnon 的传播和国会大厦风暴之后，许多作家--包括学者和记者--在大量书籍中探讨了这一问题。一些人关注日益加剧的政治两极分化和右翼民粹主义。还有人认为，我们与生俱来的心理弱点正被国内外的操纵者所利用。有些人认为，阴谋论的兴起是社交媒体公司的经济激励、技术能力和自由主义精神的必然结果。有些人甚至坚持认为，这些阴谋论--无论看起来多么离奇--都是对美国政治生活中腐败和阴谋正常化的一种可以理解的回应。记者戴维-内瓦特（David Neiwert）二十多年来一直在报道美国右翼暴力极端主义。在《Alt-America：特朗普时代激进右翼的崛起》（2017 年）和《红药丸，蓝药丸：如何抵制正在杀死我们的阴谋论》（2022 年）中，他描绘了另类右翼及其白人民族主义意识形态如何影响当代美国政治的历史，不仅成为主流，而且随着特朗普成为白宫的阴谋制造者总司令，不再被污名化。他追溯了从 20 世纪 90 年代民兵和爱国者组织的兴起，到 2010 年代茶党运动，再到特朗普时代的故事。(两本书的内容有所重叠，前者更侧重于详述背景故事，后者则侧重于探讨应对阴谋论的策略）。在《另类美国》（Alt-America）一书中，内韦特认为，这种 "另类美国""主要是一个日益根深蒂固的阴谋论产业的产物[第11页完]，它产生了一个又一个关于真相的理论，而真相就隐藏在主流媒体产生的公共叙事背后"。这种阴谋论依赖于一种民粹主义的生产者意识形态，在这种意识形态中，诚实、勤劳的美国人的自由正在被上层阴暗的全球主义精英（新世界秩序）和下层非美国的拾荒者所侵蚀，这种意识形态往往通过白人民族主义、白人至上主义、反犹太主义、仇外心理和厌女症等形式体现出来。正如内瓦特所指出的（弗里达-贝克曼（Frida Beckman）最近出版的《妄想时序》一书也对此进行了深入探讨），对地位丧失的想象是这些形式的白人男性偏执狂的核心："阴谋论解释了为什么这个国家不再是他们所希望的样子，为什么这个国家变得面目全非。这些叙事代表了他们世界的深层真相，同时反复强化了他们长期以来的偏见"。激进右翼的这种恐惧在 20 世纪 90 年代的民兵运动中首次凸显出来，部分原因是日益党派化和放松管制的媒体环境（包括脱口秀电台和福克斯新闻）推波助澜。但随着 1995 年俄克拉荷马市爆炸案等国内恐怖主义行为的发生，这一浪潮逐渐消退。然而，内瓦特认为 9/11 事件是激进右翼回归并成为主流的时刻，伊斯兰恐惧症也随之兴起。他记录了激进右翼如何...
{"title":"It's the Algorithm, Stupid!","authors":"Clare Birchall, Peter Knight","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929655","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929655","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> It's the Algorithm, Stupid! <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Clare Birchall (bio) and Peter Knight (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>alt-america: the rise of the radical right in the age of trump</small></em><br/> David Neiwert<br/> Verso<br/> https://www.versobooks.com/books/2801-alt-america<br/> 464 pages; Print, $19.95 <em><small>red pill, blue pill: how to counteract the conspiracy theories that are killing us</small></em><br/> David Neiwert<br/> Rowman & Littlefield<br/> https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781633886261/Red-Pill-Blue-Pill-How-to-Counteract-the-Conspiracy-Theories-That-Are-Killing-Us<br/> 232 pages; Print, $28.95 <em><small>social warming: the dangerous and polarising effects of social media</small></em><br/> Charles Arthur<br/> Oneworld Publications<br/> https://oneworld-publications.com/work/social-warming/<br/> 352 pages; Print, $18.95 <em><small>the chaos machine: the inside story of how social media rewired our minds and our world</small></em><br/> Max Fisher<br/> Quercus Publishing<br/> https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/titles/max-fisher/the-chaos-machine/9781529416367/<br/> 352 pages; Print, $29.00 <em><small>they knew: how a culture of conspiracy keeps america complacent</small></em><br/> Sarah Kendzior<br/> Flatiron Books<br/> https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/sarah-kendzior/<br/> 256 pages; Print, $29.99 <p><strong>[End Page 10]</strong></p> <p>What drives the visibility and the virality of conspiracy theories in the United States and elsewhere today, especially in the online world? In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of QAnon, and the storming of the Capitol, many writers—both academics and journalists—have addressed this question in a flood of books. Some have focused on the increasing political polarization and the lurch to right-wing populism. Others have argued that our innate psychological weakness is now being exploited by manipulators both domestic and foreign. Some have suggested that the rise of conspiracism is an inevitable consequence of the financial incentives, technological affordances, and the libertarian ethos of social media companies. Some have even insisted that these conspiracy theories—no matter how seemingly bizarre—are an understandable response to the normalization of corruption and conspiracy in US political life.</p> <p>The journalist David Neiwert has been covering right-wing violent extremism in the United States for over two decades. In <em>Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump</em> (2017) and <em>Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us</em> (2022) he charts the history of how the alt-right and its ideology of white nationalism came to influence contemporary American politics, becoming not only mainstream but, with Trump as the conspiracy-monger-in-chief in the White House, no longer stigmatized. H","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141507562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2024.a929656
Asbjørn Dyrendal
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Conspiracy Theories in the Time of Covid-19</em> by Clare Birchall and Peter Knight <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Asbjørn Dyrendal (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>conspiracy theories in the time of covid-19</small></em><br/> Clare Birchall and Peter Knight<br/> Routledge<br/> https://www.routledge.com/Conspiracy-Theories-in-the-Time-of-Covid-19/Birchall-Knight/p/book/9781032324999<br/> 248 pages; Print, $32.95 <p>The COVID-19 pandemic brought on a mass of conspiracist speculations. It also brought massive speculations about conspiracism and research on the same. Clare Birchall and Peter Knight's <em>Conspiracy Theories in the Time of Covid-19</em> is a masterful analysis of all three strands. A slim volume at two hundred pages, it manages to be encompassing, careful, nuanced, and sharply analytical.</p> <p>The book includes an introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion. The first chapter, on the cultural and political contexts from which COVID conspiracy theories emerged, is follow by a chapter on the "infodemic." Chapters 3 and 4 trace various COVID conspiracy theories over the first year of the pandemic, and chapters 5–7 discuss the features of COVID conspiracy theories, conspiracy entrepreneurs, and what Birchall and Knight call "dis-info capitalism." This structure allows the authors, as they state, to "visit and re-visit Covid-19 conspiracy theories, covering new ground each time" using new perspectives, foci, methods, and contexts. The contexts also include history, as conspiracy speculations, even about COVID, did not start with Trump, his fans, or QAnon. Concerns involving causes of health and illness have long been sites of speculations about hidden evil actors. Allegations of conspiracy stretch from antisemitic rumors that plagues were caused by poisoned wells in the Middle Ages to modern miracle cures that the proverbial "they" allegedly do not want to release to the public. That a pandemic would release a mass of conspiracy narratives was thus easy to predict, and the World Health Organization was quick to warn about an "infodemic" following the pandemic.</p> <p>The concept of an "infodemic" has a certain immediate appeal, but it is analytically problematic and is treated as such in the book. In public communication <strong>[End Page 18]</strong> it was often pragmatically understood as "fake news" and conspiracy theories, and as such served as a warning about misinformation. The "curb appeal" of the concept thus relates to the topic of the book—the conspiracy theories. There were undoubtedly enough of those, but Birchall and Knight show that they constituted only a small percentage of the misinformation content produced on COVID.</p> <p>That conspiracist content was but a small part of the overall discussion is important, but the authors are never dismissive of conspiracist content
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要：评论者 科维德-19 时代的阴谋论》（Conspiracy Theories in the Time of Covid-19），作者克莱尔-伯查尔（Clare Birchall）和彼得-奈特（Peter Knight）。它也带来了关于阴谋论的大量猜测和研究。克莱尔-伯查尔（Clare Birchall）和彼得-奈特（Peter Knight）的《Conspiracy Theories in the Time of Covid-19》对这三个方面进行了精辟的分析。该书篇幅不长，仅有 200 页，但却包罗万象、细致入微、分析犀利。全书包括导言、七章和结论。第一章介绍了 COVID 阴谋论产生的文化和政治背景，随后是关于 "信息学术 "的一章。第 3 章和第 4 章追溯了大流行病第一年的各种 COVID 阴谋理论，第 5-7 章讨论了 COVID 阴谋理论、阴谋企业家以及伯查尔和奈特所说的 "非信息资本主义 "的特征。正如作者所说，这种结构使他们能够利用新的视角、重点、方法和背景，"访问和重新访问 Covid-19 阴谋论，每次都有新的内容"。背景还包括历史，因为即使是关于 COVID 的阴谋推测，也并非始于特朗普、他的粉丝或 QAnon。长期以来，人们对健康和疾病原因的关注一直是对隐藏的邪恶行为者的猜测。从中世纪关于瘟疫是由毒井引起的反犹太主义谣言，到现代 "他们 "据称不愿向公众公布的奇迹疗法，各种阴谋指控层出不穷。因此，大流行病会释放出大量的阴谋论叙事，这一点很容易预测，世界卫生组织很快就对大流行病后的 "信息流行病 "发出了警告。信息疫情 "的概念有一定的直接吸引力，但在分析上却存在问题，书中也是这样论述的。在公共传播中 [第 18 页结束]，它通常被实用地理解为 "假新闻 "和阴谋论，因此起到了警示错误信息的作用。因此，这一概念的 "吸引力 "与本书的主题--阴谋论--有关。阴谋论的数量无疑是足够多的，但伯查尔和奈特表明，它们只占 COVID 上产生的错误信息的一小部分。阴谋论内容只是整个讨论的一小部分，这一点很重要，但作者从未对阴谋论内容或其潜在影响不屑一顾。相反，他们仔细地将每一条信息置于他们接着要分析的背景中。与大多数关于 COVID 阴谋论的研究不同，作者来自文化研究而非心理学，因此研究背景无一例外都是社会和文化背景。与其他社会现象一样，阴谋信仰或 "叙事 "要想成功吸引大众的注意力和想象力，就必须解决现实问题和利益。作者用整整一章的篇幅阐述了影响我们接受阴谋论叙事的因素，追溯了从经济不安全和不平等、卷土重来的民族主义和独裁主义到 "后真相 "文化战争等各种因素。如果你想对阴谋论的研究有一个简短而深刻的介绍，本书的第一章就是最好的介绍之一。大流行病引发了大量研究，既有关于 COVID 的，也有关于与 COVID 相关的阴谋推测的。本书以后者为中心，但也涵盖和借鉴了前者的相关部分。作者提到的有关 COVID 的研究往往与阴谋推测相反，但在介绍这些研究时，并不是为了揭穿后者，而是为了将阴谋推测中有时令人不安的信息片段和现实世界中的事件与背景联系起来。如果说第一章探讨了阴谋论信念的重要潜在因素，这些因素决定了不信任的总体水平和方向，那么第二章和第三章介绍的有关 COVID 和阴谋论主张的研究背景，则探讨了具体阴谋论指控背后更近一步的关注点和论据，以及什么是阴谋论。
{"title":"Conspiracy Theories in the Time of Covid-19 by Clare Birchall and Peter Knight (review)","authors":"Asbjørn Dyrendal","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929656","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929656","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Conspiracy Theories in the Time of Covid-19</em> by Clare Birchall and Peter Knight <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Asbjørn Dyrendal (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>conspiracy theories in the time of covid-19</small></em><br/> Clare Birchall and Peter Knight<br/> Routledge<br/> https://www.routledge.com/Conspiracy-Theories-in-the-Time-of-Covid-19/Birchall-Knight/p/book/9781032324999<br/> 248 pages; Print, $32.95 <p>The COVID-19 pandemic brought on a mass of conspiracist speculations. It also brought massive speculations about conspiracism and research on the same. Clare Birchall and Peter Knight's <em>Conspiracy Theories in the Time of Covid-19</em> is a masterful analysis of all three strands. A slim volume at two hundred pages, it manages to be encompassing, careful, nuanced, and sharply analytical.</p> <p>The book includes an introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion. The first chapter, on the cultural and political contexts from which COVID conspiracy theories emerged, is follow by a chapter on the \"infodemic.\" Chapters 3 and 4 trace various COVID conspiracy theories over the first year of the pandemic, and chapters 5–7 discuss the features of COVID conspiracy theories, conspiracy entrepreneurs, and what Birchall and Knight call \"dis-info capitalism.\" This structure allows the authors, as they state, to \"visit and re-visit Covid-19 conspiracy theories, covering new ground each time\" using new perspectives, foci, methods, and contexts. The contexts also include history, as conspiracy speculations, even about COVID, did not start with Trump, his fans, or QAnon. Concerns involving causes of health and illness have long been sites of speculations about hidden evil actors. Allegations of conspiracy stretch from antisemitic rumors that plagues were caused by poisoned wells in the Middle Ages to modern miracle cures that the proverbial \"they\" allegedly do not want to release to the public. That a pandemic would release a mass of conspiracy narratives was thus easy to predict, and the World Health Organization was quick to warn about an \"infodemic\" following the pandemic.</p> <p>The concept of an \"infodemic\" has a certain immediate appeal, but it is analytically problematic and is treated as such in the book. In public communication <strong>[End Page 18]</strong> it was often pragmatically understood as \"fake news\" and conspiracy theories, and as such served as a warning about misinformation. The \"curb appeal\" of the concept thus relates to the topic of the book—the conspiracy theories. There were undoubtedly enough of those, but Birchall and Knight show that they constituted only a small percentage of the misinformation content produced on COVID.</p> <p>That conspiracist content was but a small part of the overall discussion is important, but the authors are never dismissive of conspiracist content","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"95 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141507563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2024.a929657
Michael Butter
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy</em> by Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Michael Butter (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>a lot of people are saying: the new conspiracism and the assault on democracy</small></em><br/> Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum<br/> Princeton University Press<br/> https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691188836/a-lot-of-people-are-saying<br/> 232 pages; Print, $26.95 <p>Conspiracy theories are an exciting topic but often tedious to study. That is because conspiracy theorists usually go to great lengths to prove their claims. They analyze sources and secret communication, draw on eyewitness reports and make inferences, and are obsessed with details. In <em>Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism</em>, Augustin Barruel blames the Freemasons and Illuminati for orchestrating the French Revolution and provides footnotes on each of its several hundred pages; David Ray Griffin's <em>The New Pearl Harbor Revisited</em>, which claims that 9/11 was an "inside job" conducted by the US government, unfolds its argument in 250 pages, which are followed by 80 pages of notes. The first text was published in 1797, the second in 2008. This shows how stable the mode of conspiracist argumentation has remained over the centuries. It was not even affected by the stigmatization that conspiracy theories underwent after World War II in Europe and North America, as Katharina Thalmann has shown in a meticulously argued book reviewed by Todor Hristov in this issue. When conspiracy theories ceased being the commonly accepted explanation of events and began to be eyed suspiciously by the majority of people, and especially by epistemic authorities, their proponents were left with two options. They could either embrace their marginalization and articulate their allegations openly in a language replete with claims of hidden plots and evil designs, or they could veil that they were spreading conspiracy theories by pretending to be just asking questions. Both options, however, meant presenting lengthy arguments and getting bogged down in details.</p> <p>This way of presenting conspiracist allegations is what Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum call the "old conspiracism." Their intriguing claim <strong>[End Page 22]</strong> is that in the United States in recent years it has largely been superseded by what they call "the new conspiracism." Whereas the old conspiracism depended on evidence, the new one, they argue, thrives on repetition. An accusation is repeated over and over again, but no attempt is made to prove it. It is, in their memorable phrase, "conspiracy without the theory." The claim is validated when it is repeated by people who reiterate, retweet, like, or forward it: "If <em>a lot of peopl
{"title":"A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy by Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum (review)","authors":"Michael Butter","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929657","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929657","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy</em> by Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Michael Butter (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>a lot of people are saying: the new conspiracism and the assault on democracy</small></em><br/> Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum<br/> Princeton University Press<br/> https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691188836/a-lot-of-people-are-saying<br/> 232 pages; Print, $26.95 <p>Conspiracy theories are an exciting topic but often tedious to study. That is because conspiracy theorists usually go to great lengths to prove their claims. They analyze sources and secret communication, draw on eyewitness reports and make inferences, and are obsessed with details. In <em>Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism</em>, Augustin Barruel blames the Freemasons and Illuminati for orchestrating the French Revolution and provides footnotes on each of its several hundred pages; David Ray Griffin's <em>The New Pearl Harbor Revisited</em>, which claims that 9/11 was an \"inside job\" conducted by the US government, unfolds its argument in 250 pages, which are followed by 80 pages of notes. The first text was published in 1797, the second in 2008. This shows how stable the mode of conspiracist argumentation has remained over the centuries. It was not even affected by the stigmatization that conspiracy theories underwent after World War II in Europe and North America, as Katharina Thalmann has shown in a meticulously argued book reviewed by Todor Hristov in this issue. When conspiracy theories ceased being the commonly accepted explanation of events and began to be eyed suspiciously by the majority of people, and especially by epistemic authorities, their proponents were left with two options. They could either embrace their marginalization and articulate their allegations openly in a language replete with claims of hidden plots and evil designs, or they could veil that they were spreading conspiracy theories by pretending to be just asking questions. Both options, however, meant presenting lengthy arguments and getting bogged down in details.</p> <p>This way of presenting conspiracist allegations is what Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum call the \"old conspiracism.\" Their intriguing claim <strong>[End Page 22]</strong> is that in the United States in recent years it has largely been superseded by what they call \"the new conspiracism.\" Whereas the old conspiracism depended on evidence, the new one, they argue, thrives on repetition. An accusation is repeated over and over again, but no attempt is made to prove it. It is, in their memorable phrase, \"conspiracy without the theory.\" The claim is validated when it is repeated by people who reiterate, retweet, like, or forward it: \"If <em>a lot of peopl","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141507564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2024.a929675
David M. Katz
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>An Alphabet</em> by Henry Weinfield <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> David M. Katz (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>an alphabet</small></em><br/> Henry Weinfield<br/> Dos Madres Press<br/> https://www.dosmadres.com/https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/an-alphabet-by-henry-weinfield/<br/> 68 pages; Print, $20.00 <p>In 1980, in his book <em>In the Sweetness of the New Time</em>, Henry Weinfield published "Xerxes," a poem of heroic grandeur in which he incorrectly quotes a line from one of Edward Lear's nonsense alphabet books. Accompanied by an illustration of an angry-looking little king with an arrow raised in one hand and a scimitar in the other, Lear's poem correctly reads: <strong>[End Page 110]</strong></p> <blockquote> <p><span>X was once a great king Xerxes</span><span>Xerxy,</span><span>Perxy,</span><span>Turxy,</span><span>Xerxy,</span><span>Linxy, lurxy,</span><span>Great King Xerxes!</span></p> </blockquote> <p>Understandably, considering the regal ferocity of Lear's drawing, the young poet misquoted Lear's first line as "X is for Xerxes, / the mad king." Acknowledging his error a half century later, Weinfield nevertheless uses the misquotation as the epigraph to his highly enjoyable new book of poems, <em>An Alphabet</em>, suggesting the personal evolution of poetic creativity as it may play out over a poet's lifetime. Indeed, there's a delightful feeling of completeness, of a road followed to its very end, radiating from the form Weinfield has chosen for this sequence of poems. Like a dictionary, an encyclopedia, or a how-to manual, an alphabet book also aspires to comprehensiveness. Yet, as the title suggests, this volume is "an" alphabet, not "the" alphabet—that is, one poet's take on written language. Because of the originality of its attack and the exemplary excellence of its versification, however, Weinfield's book deserves a place on the shelf next to more scholarly volumes on the art of poetry.</p> <p>In addition to surveying the alphabet as a whole, Weinfield unearths, through puns and rhymes, hidden meanings associated with the individual letters. Graphically spare, each letter of the alphabet carries with it a vast web of verbal associations, and his poems act as grids across which such meanings can meet and correspond or collide. While any letter can resonate in this way, the letter X seems an apt symbol for all the letters in Weinfield's personal alphabet. Rare and strange and beautiful, X represents the magic of written language as it first may be encountered by a child in a speller. But in more universal terms, X may mark the spot where language itself begins.</p> <p>In "Xerxes," Weinfield envisioned a Romantic version of the Persian king: a young man kneeling before a rose. It is "Xerxes the tenor / in Handel's Largo" in a place of music and peace and solitude, rather than Xerxes t
{"title":"An Alphabet by Henry Weinfield (review)","authors":"David M. Katz","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929675","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>An Alphabet</em> by Henry Weinfield <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> David M. Katz (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>an alphabet</small></em><br/> Henry Weinfield<br/> Dos Madres Press<br/> https://www.dosmadres.com/https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/an-alphabet-by-henry-weinfield/<br/> 68 pages; Print, $20.00 <p>In 1980, in his book <em>In the Sweetness of the New Time</em>, Henry Weinfield published \"Xerxes,\" a poem of heroic grandeur in which he incorrectly quotes a line from one of Edward Lear's nonsense alphabet books. Accompanied by an illustration of an angry-looking little king with an arrow raised in one hand and a scimitar in the other, Lear's poem correctly reads: <strong>[End Page 110]</strong></p> <blockquote> <p><span>X was once a great king Xerxes</span><span>Xerxy,</span><span>Perxy,</span><span>Turxy,</span><span>Xerxy,</span><span>Linxy, lurxy,</span><span>Great King Xerxes!</span></p> </blockquote> <p>Understandably, considering the regal ferocity of Lear's drawing, the young poet misquoted Lear's first line as \"X is for Xerxes, / the mad king.\" Acknowledging his error a half century later, Weinfield nevertheless uses the misquotation as the epigraph to his highly enjoyable new book of poems, <em>An Alphabet</em>, suggesting the personal evolution of poetic creativity as it may play out over a poet's lifetime. Indeed, there's a delightful feeling of completeness, of a road followed to its very end, radiating from the form Weinfield has chosen for this sequence of poems. Like a dictionary, an encyclopedia, or a how-to manual, an alphabet book also aspires to comprehensiveness. Yet, as the title suggests, this volume is \"an\" alphabet, not \"the\" alphabet—that is, one poet's take on written language. Because of the originality of its attack and the exemplary excellence of its versification, however, Weinfield's book deserves a place on the shelf next to more scholarly volumes on the art of poetry.</p> <p>In addition to surveying the alphabet as a whole, Weinfield unearths, through puns and rhymes, hidden meanings associated with the individual letters. Graphically spare, each letter of the alphabet carries with it a vast web of verbal associations, and his poems act as grids across which such meanings can meet and correspond or collide. While any letter can resonate in this way, the letter X seems an apt symbol for all the letters in Weinfield's personal alphabet. Rare and strange and beautiful, X represents the magic of written language as it first may be encountered by a child in a speller. But in more universal terms, X may mark the spot where language itself begins.</p> <p>In \"Xerxes,\" Weinfield envisioned a Romantic version of the Persian king: a young man kneeling before a rose. It is \"Xerxes the tenor / in Handel's Largo\" in a place of music and peace and solitude, rather than Xerxes t","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141516021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2024.a929681
Alan Steinfeld
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Surrealist Muse</em> by Anne Whitehouse, and: <em>Escaping Lee Miller</em> by Anne Whitehouse, and: <em>Frida</em> by Anne Whitehouse <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Alan Steinfeld (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>surrealist muse</small></em><br/> Anne Whitehouse<br/> Ethelzine<br/> https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/surrealist-muse-by-anne-whitehouse<br/> $9.00 <em><small>escaping lee miller</small></em><br/> Anne Whitehouse<br/> Ethelzine<br/> https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/escaping-lee-miller-by-anne-whitehouse<br/> $9.00 <em><small>frida</small></em><br/> Anne Whitehouse<br/> Ethelzine<br/> https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/frida-by-anne-whitehouse<br/> $10.00 <p>Anne Whitehouse's series on the women of surrealism provides a chronicle of the inner workings of three extraordinary women who emerged out of the surrealist art movement of the 1930s and 1940s. While surrealism sought to focus on the absurd, the fantastic, and the transhuman, the lives of Leonora Carrington, Lee Miller, and Frida Kahlo reflect the very real challenges of the human condition.</p> <p>Published by Ethel Zine and Micro Press, this exquisitely handcrafted book series, designed by Sara Lefsyk, is a collector's dream. Whitehouse's thought-provoking approach invites readers to delve into the personal struggles, triumphs, and contributions of these artists. In many ways, the exceptional lives of the three women she portrays can be characterized as "surreal," marked by extreme physical suffering and emotional tribulations that set them apart from the ordinary women of their times.</p> <p>The situations of these lives reflect the sentiment of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote, "Works of art always spring from those who have faced <strong>[End Page 148]</strong> the danger, gone to the very end of experience, to the point beyond which no human being can go." Indeed, in these concise biographical sketches Whitehouse sheds light on journeys "no human being" would dare to embark upon.</p> <p>Her approach to Carrington, Miller, and Kahlo adds a new layer of understanding to the surrealist movement, showing it as a response to the harsh realities of the world. Overall, Whitehouse is both engaging and insightful, providing a fresh perspective into the lives of extraordinary women. Each was a contributor to the surrealist movement equal to the widespread male-dominated acknowledgments that litter the art history books. For instance, Whitehouse accuses the surrealist movement of misogyny and the tendency to portray women as mere muses and symbols of mystical and erotic fantasies. She attributes this hostility to the surrealist men's love and admiration for each other. When Kahlo was invited to Paris by the movement's leader, André Breton, she was met with a rude reception and eventually found refuge with the painter Marcel Duchamp.</p> <p>The
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要：评论者： 安妮-怀特豪斯的《超现实主义缪斯》和逃离李-米勒》，安妮-怀特豪斯著，以及《弗里达》，安妮-怀特豪斯著：Frida by Anne Whitehouse Alan Steinfeld (bio) 超现实主义缪斯 Anne Whitehouse Ethelzine https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/surrealist-muse-by-anne-whitehouse $9.00 Escaping Lee Miller Anne Whitehouse Ethelzine https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/escaping-lee-miller-by-anne-whitehouse $9.00 frida Anne Whitehouse Ethelzine https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/frida-by-anne-whitehouse $10.00 Anne Whitehouse 的超现实主义女性系列作品记录了三位非凡女性的内心世界，她们都是 20 世纪 30 年代和 40 年代超现实主义艺术运动中涌现出来的。超现实主义追求的是荒诞、梦幻和超人类，而莱奥诺拉-卡灵顿、李-米勒和弗里达-卡洛的生活则反映了人类面临的现实挑战。这套书由 Ethel Zine 和 Micro Press 出版，由 Sara Lefsyk 设计，手工精湛，是收藏家梦寐以求的作品。怀特豪斯以发人深省的方式邀请读者深入了解这些艺术家的个人奋斗、胜利和贡献。在许多方面，她所描绘的三位女性的非凡人生可以用 "超现实 "来形容，极度的肉体痛苦和情感磨难使她们有别于那个时代的普通女性。这些生活境遇反映了诗人赖讷-玛丽亚-里尔克的情感，他写道："艺术作品总是从那些面对 [结束语 第 148 页] 危险、走到经验尽头、走到人类无法超越的地步的人身上产生的"。的确，怀特豪斯在这些简明扼要的传记中揭示了 "任何人 "都不敢踏上的旅程。她对卡林顿、米勒和卡洛的研究，为人们对超现实主义运动的理解增添了新的层次，显示出超现实主义运动是对残酷现实世界的一种回应。总之，怀特豪斯的作品既引人入胜，又富有洞察力，为我们了解非凡女性的生活提供了一个全新的视角。她们每个人都对超现实主义运动做出了贡献，与艺术史书中广泛存在的以男性为主导的认识不相上下。例如，怀特豪斯指责超现实主义运动厌恶女性，倾向于将女性仅仅描绘成神秘和色情幻想的缪斯和象征。她将这种敌意归咎于超现实主义男性之间的爱慕之情。当卡洛受到超现实主义运动领袖安德烈-布勒东的邀请前往巴黎时，她受到了粗暴的对待，最终在画家马塞尔-杜尚那里找到了避难所。怀特豪斯系列第一本书的书名《超现实主义缪斯》（2020 年，指莱昂诺拉-卡林顿）肯定会被这位画家/作家拒绝。事实上，卡林顿在纽约现代艺术博物馆的展览中曾说过："我没有时间成为任何人的缪斯。......我忙于反抗我的家庭，学习成为一名艺术家"。怀特豪斯强调了卡林顿强烈的独立性，尽管她是超现实主义圈子中最年轻、看似最迷人的成员。布勒东形容卡林顿是 "拒绝中的伟大"，她拒绝了曼-雷、琼-米罗，甚至她的初恋情人马克斯-恩斯特的缪斯角色。卡林顿回忆起她与恩斯特的短暂恋情时说，那是 "一个天堂般的时代"，直到战争将他们分开。然而，多年后他们在纽约相遇时，她拒绝了进一步的交往。她最后一次反抗男性侵犯的行为发生在她拒绝超现实主义电影导演路易斯-布努埃尔（Luis Buñuel）的追求时。在被关进墨西哥浴室后，她用经血装饰墙壁，以示反抗。这段经历强化了三部曲的主题--女性超现实主义者用顽强的毅力蔑视礼仪社会的规范。在每段叙述中，怀特豪斯的非线性手法都增强了这些生活的抒情性。卡林顿的叙述中有一个值得注意的疏漏，那就是她作为作家的才华没有得到认可。最近出版的一本关于 [第 149 页末] 她的荒诞派故事的书表明，这些故事与弗朗茨-卡夫卡的作品不相上下。莱奥诺拉最终从精神分裂症、抑郁症和心碎中走出来，成为墨西哥一位更加睿智的女性，而怀特豪斯的下一部传记则是一个与之截然不同的故事，讲述了一位富有创造力的......
{"title":"Surrealist Muse by Anne Whitehouse, and: Escaping Lee Miller by Anne Whitehouse, and: Frida by Anne Whitehouse (review)","authors":"Alan Steinfeld","doi":"10.1353/abr.2024.a929681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2024.a929681","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Surrealist Muse</em> by Anne Whitehouse, and: <em>Escaping Lee Miller</em> by Anne Whitehouse, and: <em>Frida</em> by Anne Whitehouse <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Alan Steinfeld (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>surrealist muse</small></em><br/> Anne Whitehouse<br/> Ethelzine<br/> https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/surrealist-muse-by-anne-whitehouse<br/> $9.00 <em><small>escaping lee miller</small></em><br/> Anne Whitehouse<br/> Ethelzine<br/> https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/escaping-lee-miller-by-anne-whitehouse<br/> $9.00 <em><small>frida</small></em><br/> Anne Whitehouse<br/> Ethelzine<br/> https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/frida-by-anne-whitehouse<br/> $10.00 <p>Anne Whitehouse's series on the women of surrealism provides a chronicle of the inner workings of three extraordinary women who emerged out of the surrealist art movement of the 1930s and 1940s. While surrealism sought to focus on the absurd, the fantastic, and the transhuman, the lives of Leonora Carrington, Lee Miller, and Frida Kahlo reflect the very real challenges of the human condition.</p> <p>Published by Ethel Zine and Micro Press, this exquisitely handcrafted book series, designed by Sara Lefsyk, is a collector's dream. Whitehouse's thought-provoking approach invites readers to delve into the personal struggles, triumphs, and contributions of these artists. In many ways, the exceptional lives of the three women she portrays can be characterized as \"surreal,\" marked by extreme physical suffering and emotional tribulations that set them apart from the ordinary women of their times.</p> <p>The situations of these lives reflect the sentiment of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote, \"Works of art always spring from those who have faced <strong>[End Page 148]</strong> the danger, gone to the very end of experience, to the point beyond which no human being can go.\" Indeed, in these concise biographical sketches Whitehouse sheds light on journeys \"no human being\" would dare to embark upon.</p> <p>Her approach to Carrington, Miller, and Kahlo adds a new layer of understanding to the surrealist movement, showing it as a response to the harsh realities of the world. Overall, Whitehouse is both engaging and insightful, providing a fresh perspective into the lives of extraordinary women. Each was a contributor to the surrealist movement equal to the widespread male-dominated acknowledgments that litter the art history books. For instance, Whitehouse accuses the surrealist movement of misogyny and the tendency to portray women as mere muses and symbols of mystical and erotic fantasies. She attributes this hostility to the surrealist men's love and admiration for each other. When Kahlo was invited to Paris by the movement's leader, André Breton, she was met with a rude reception and eventually found refuge with the painter Marcel Duchamp.</p> <p>The","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141516026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921772
Jeffrey R. Di Leo
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Commerce with Montaigne <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Jeffrey R. Di Leo (bio) </li> </ul> <p>In 1676, the Catholic Church put Montaigne's <em>Essays</em> on the <em>Index Librorum Prohibitorum</em>. According to the <em>New Catholic Encyclopedia</em> (2003), the index, "established in 1557 by Pope Paul IV, was a list of books that Catholics were prohibited from reading on pain of excommunication," it continues, "because they contained material considered dangerous or contrary to faith or morals." The list would continue as Catholic doctrine until 1966, when Pope Paul VI abolished it on the grounds that it was "contrary to the teaching of Vatican II concerning freedom of inquiry."</p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Fig 1. <p>Replica of a card from the original Villanova University Library card catalog.</p> <p></p> <p>For those who doubt that this list meant very much before Vatican II abolished it, consider an exhibit from the Villanova University Library (Figure 1). Here we find a catalog card for an English translation of Montaigne's <em>Essays</em>, which is marked in italics "On Church Index" above the call number and author information. While professors could freely check out the <em>Essays</em>, students wanting to check it out "had to report to the Library Director's office with a permission slip from their professor to request access to the book." The reason for its inclusion in the <em>Index</em> was apparently that it was contrary to the philosophy of Descartes, which dominated at the time and regarded animals as automata, whereas Montaigne regarded animals as capable of reason. The Catholic Church contended that Montaigne's doctrine on animal reason placed in peril the immortality of humans. Hence, almost three centuries later—and just a year before the summer of love—students at Villanova and presumably other Catholic universities in America needed a permission slip from their professors to check it out of the library. <strong>[End Page 1]</strong></p> <p>One wonders though how Catholic university professors in the 1960s came to the decision to allow—or deny—their students access to books such as Montaigne's <em>Essays</em> "that Catholics were prohibited from reading on pain of excommunication." In addition, it is hard today not to think about such decisions in the context of zealous right-wing public library boards considering whether to allow—or deny—access to LGBTQ+ reading material. Whereas Vatican II eliminated the <em>Index</em> with the intention of freedom of inquiry, right-wing zealots are working hard today to reestablish a new version of it in public libraries across America. Nevertheless, it is still to be determined how comprehensive the <em>New Index Librorum Prohibitorum</em> will be—and if checking out Montaigne's <em>Essays</em> from your local public library will require p
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要： 杰弗里-R.-迪里奥（Jeffrey R. Di Leo）（简历 1676 年，天主教会将蒙田的《随笔集》列入《图书馆禁书索引》。根据《新天主教百科全书》（2003 年），该索引 "由教皇保罗四世于 1557 年制定，是一份禁止天主教徒阅读的书籍清单，违者将被逐出教会"，它继续说道，"因为这些书籍包含被认为危险或违背信仰或道德的内容"。这份书单作为天主教教义一直延续到 1966 年，教皇保罗六世废除了这份书单，理由是它 "违背了梵二关于探究自由的教导"。 点击查看大图 查看完整分辨率 图 1.维拉诺瓦大学图书馆卡片目录的复制品。 如果有人怀疑这份目录在梵蒂冈二世废除之前意义不大，不妨看看维拉诺瓦大学图书馆的一件展品（图 1）。在这里，我们发现了一张蒙田《随笔》英译本的目录卡，在书名号和作者信息上方用斜体标注了 "关于教会索引"。虽然教授可以自由借阅《随笔》，但学生想要借阅它，"必须持教授的许可单到图书馆馆长办公室申请"。该书被列入索引的原因显然是它与当时占统治地位的笛卡尔哲学相悖，笛卡尔哲学将动物视为自动装置，而蒙田则认为动物具有理性。天主教会认为，蒙田关于动物理性的学说危及人类的永生。因此，在将近三个世纪之后--就在 "爱之夏 "的前一年--维拉诺瓦大学和美国其他天主教大学的学生要想从图书馆借阅这本书，需要得到教授的许可。[第 1 页完] 不过，我们不禁要问，20 世纪 60 年代的天主教大学教授是如何决定允许或拒绝他们的学生阅读蒙田的《随笔》等 "天主教徒不得阅读，否则将被逐出教会 "的书籍的。此外，今天我们很难不在热心的右翼公共图书馆委员会考虑是否允许或拒绝LGBTQ+阅读材料的背景下思考这些决定。梵二会议出于探究自由的目的取消了《索引》，而如今右翼狂热分子正努力在美国各地的公共图书馆重建新版《索引》。尽管如此，新版《图书馆禁书索引》的全面性如何，以及从当地公共图书馆借阅蒙田的《随笔集》是否需要向公共图书馆馆长出示图书馆董事会成员的许可单，仍有待确定。毕竟，他确实认为动物可以推理，而我确信这与美国某地图书馆董事会成员的信仰或道德是相悖的。________ 蒙田晚年写了一篇题为 "De trois commerces"（1585-88）的文章。这是他的散文集第 3 卷中的第 3 篇文章。这篇文章被翻译成 "Of Three Kinds of Intercourse"（E. J. Trenchmann，1927 年）、"Of Three Kinds of Association"（Donald Frame，1957 年）、"On Three Kinds of Social Intercourse"（M. A. Screech，1991 年）等不同译名，但范德比尔特图书馆目录卡上标注的书名则更为直白："Of Three Commerces》（查尔斯-科顿，1686 年）。这是一篇非常个人化的文章，蒙田在文中讨论了三种形式的 "商业"，这些商业丰富了他的生活，使他的生活更有意义。第一种形式的商业涉及友谊： 我所追求的社交和亲密的人，是那些他们称之为高雅和有才华的人，一想到他们，我就对其他人失去了好感。如果理解正确的话，这是我们最稀有的一种类型，这种类型主要归功于大自然。这种商业活动的目的仅仅是频繁而亲密的聚会和交谈，是智慧的锻炼，而没有任何其他的成果。在我们的谈话中，所有的话题对我来说都是一样的；对我来说，即使这些话题既不严肃也不深刻，也没有什么关系；魅力和针对性是永远不会缺少的。[第 2 页完] 但他在这里写到的与朋友的交往却大相径庭......
{"title":"Commerce with Montaigne","authors":"Jeffrey R. Di Leo","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921772","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921772","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Commerce with Montaigne <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Jeffrey R. Di Leo (bio) </li> </ul> <p>In 1676, the Catholic Church put Montaigne's <em>Essays</em> on the <em>Index Librorum Prohibitorum</em>. According to the <em>New Catholic Encyclopedia</em> (2003), the index, \"established in 1557 by Pope Paul IV, was a list of books that Catholics were prohibited from reading on pain of excommunication,\" it continues, \"because they contained material considered dangerous or contrary to faith or morals.\" The list would continue as Catholic doctrine until 1966, when Pope Paul VI abolished it on the grounds that it was \"contrary to the teaching of Vatican II concerning freedom of inquiry.\"</p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution Fig 1. <p>Replica of a card from the original Villanova University Library card catalog.</p> <p></p> <p>For those who doubt that this list meant very much before Vatican II abolished it, consider an exhibit from the Villanova University Library (Figure 1). Here we find a catalog card for an English translation of Montaigne's <em>Essays</em>, which is marked in italics \"On Church Index\" above the call number and author information. While professors could freely check out the <em>Essays</em>, students wanting to check it out \"had to report to the Library Director's office with a permission slip from their professor to request access to the book.\" The reason for its inclusion in the <em>Index</em> was apparently that it was contrary to the philosophy of Descartes, which dominated at the time and regarded animals as automata, whereas Montaigne regarded animals as capable of reason. The Catholic Church contended that Montaigne's doctrine on animal reason placed in peril the immortality of humans. Hence, almost three centuries later—and just a year before the summer of love—students at Villanova and presumably other Catholic universities in America needed a permission slip from their professors to check it out of the library. <strong>[End Page 1]</strong></p> <p>One wonders though how Catholic university professors in the 1960s came to the decision to allow—or deny—their students access to books such as Montaigne's <em>Essays</em> \"that Catholics were prohibited from reading on pain of excommunication.\" In addition, it is hard today not to think about such decisions in the context of zealous right-wing public library boards considering whether to allow—or deny—access to LGBTQ+ reading material. Whereas Vatican II eliminated the <em>Index</em> with the intention of freedom of inquiry, right-wing zealots are working hard today to reestablish a new version of it in public libraries across America. Nevertheless, it is still to be determined how comprehensive the <em>New Index Librorum Prohibitorum</em> will be—and if checking out Montaigne's <em>Essays</em> from your local public library will require p","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140105603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1353/abr.2023.a921801
Robert T. Tally Jr.
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction</em> by Bruce Robbins <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Robert T. Tally Jr. (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>criticism and politics: a polemical introduction</small></em> Bruce Robbins<br/> Stanford University Press<br/> https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=34344<br/> 272 pages; Print, $24.00 <p>Early in <em>Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction</em>, Bruce Robbins tells of the time when his daughter, at age seven or eight, was asked what her father did for a living, and she replied, "Daddy is a criticizer." Robbins notes that this is basically accurate (both about him and his profession), and he then asserts that "One point of this book is to explain to literary critics and interested others how and why our discipline criticizes and why such work is worth doing, even when it doesn't seem very nice."</p> <p>It might be best to approach <em>Criticism and Politics</em> first by focusing on its subtitle, which some readers might find a bit jarring. Attaching the idea of a polemic to that of an "introduction" produces a sort of estrangement effect, particularly as "mere" introductions to literary and cultural criticism over the years have mostly sought <em>to appear</em>, if not always <em>to be</em>, disinterested, even objective. Polemics, on the contrary, are always situated and engaged, coming as <strong>[End Page 153]</strong> they do from a particular position with respect to others in their domain, and the thrust of the discourse is normally <em>athwart</em> those in favor of the object of the polemic in question. And yet, as we frequently find, those who would appear disinterested in introducing an inherently political subject likely have their own political agendas, whether they care to admit it or not. The main thesis of <em>Criticism and Politics</em>, in fact, is that criticism <em>is</em> and <em>has always been</em> political, and hence that efforts to depoliticize criticism or to suggest that criticism could be practiced entirely outside of political considerations not only mischaracterize the project of criticism but also oppose it. As Robbins discusses at length, one can identify clear relationships between anti-critical forms of criticism, within academe and outside of it, and real political forces that endanger education, reinforce structures of inequality, promote a neoliberal economic order, and fan the flames of racist, nationalist, or otherwise exclusionary social movements. Under the circumstances, a self-consciously <em>polemical introduction</em> to the subject makes a good deal of sense.</p> <p>Robbins has been at this quite a while and is now unquestionably a leading authority on criticism and politics (and the politics of criticism). His first book, <em>The Servant's Hand: English Fiction from Below</em> (1986), is a goo
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要：评论者： 批评与政治：布鲁斯-罗宾斯（Bruce Robbins）著《批评与政治：论战导论》（A Polemical Introduction by Bruce Robbins Robert T. Tally Jr. (bio) criticism and politics: a polemical introduction 布鲁斯-罗宾斯斯坦福大学出版社 https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=34344 272 页；印刷版，24.00 美元：布鲁斯-罗宾斯（Bruce Robbins）在《批评与政治：论战导论》（Critism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction）一书的开头，讲述了他七八岁的女儿被问及父亲的职业时，她回答说："爸爸是一名批评家"。罗宾斯指出，这基本上是准确的（关于他和他的职业），然后他断言："本书的一个重点是向文学评论家和其他感兴趣的人解释我们的学科是如何以及为什么要进行批评的，以及为什么这样的工作是值得做的，即使它看起来不是很好"。也许最好先从副标题入手来了解《批评与政治》，有些读者可能会觉得副标题有点刺眼。将 "论战 "的概念与 "导论 "的概念相提并论，会产生一种隔阂的效果，尤其是多年来，"纯粹 "的文学和文化批评导论大多试图表现出无私，甚至是客观。与此相反，论战总是有立场、有参与的，因为它们是站在特定的立场上，相对于其领域中的其他人而言，论战的主旨通常是反对那些支持论战对象的人。然而，正如我们经常发现的那样，那些看似对介绍一个固有的政治话题不感兴趣的人很可能有自己的政治目的，无论他们是否愿意承认。事实上，《批评与政治》一书的主要论点是，批评是政治性的，而且一直是政治性的，因此，试图将批评非政治化或暗示批评可以完全脱离政治考量的努力，不仅是对批评项目的错误描述，也是对它的反对。正如罗宾斯详细论述的那样，我们可以发现学术界内外的反批评形式与危害教育、强化不平等结构、促进新自由主义经济秩序以及煽动种族主义、民族主义或其他排斥性社会运动的现实政治力量之间存在着明确的关系。在这种情况下，对这一主题进行自觉的论战性介绍是很有意义的。罗宾斯在这方面已经有相当长的时间，现在毫无疑问是批评与政治（以及批评的政治）方面的权威。他的第一本书《仆人之手》（The Servant's Hand：他的第一本书《仆人之手：自下而上的英国小说》（The Servant Hand: English Fiction from Below，1986 年）是约瑟夫-诺斯（Joseph North）挑衅性地称之为批评界 "历史主义/语境主义范式 "的典范，罗宾斯研究了仆人这一工人阶级的独特群体在英国文学史中的社会环境和文学表现。随后，罗宾斯又出版了《世俗职业》（Secular Vocations）一书：在那个时代的 "文化战争 "中，罗宾斯站在了主要是右翼高等教育批评家的对立面，同时也站在了许多左翼人士的对立面，他们或多或少以民主为由对专业知识和职业化提出了批评。尽管当时与现在相距甚远，但这些问题依然存在，并在《批评与政治》一书中得到了进一步阐述。对许多人来说，罗宾斯最为人熟知的身份是世界主义的理论家和批评家，他创作了三部曲--《感受全球：陷入困境的国际主义》（1999 年）、《永恒的战争》（1999 年）和《从世界主义的视角看世界主义》（1999 年）：他的三部曲--《感受全球：困境中的国际主义》（1999 年）、《永恒的战争：从暴力视角看世界主义》（2012 年）和《受益者》（2017 年）--探讨了全球化时代日益棘手的民族主义和世界主义问题，尤其关注在一个可怕的暴力和不公正使巨大的财富和舒适成为可能的世界体系中，所有人在多大程度上都受到牵连（字面意思是折叠在一起或交织在一起）。我还应提及他在 2010 年发表的研究报告《向上流动与共同利益》：该书展示了罗宾斯将文学阅读、历史研究、政治承诺和社会意识优雅地结合在一起，将早期的 "自下而上的小说 "研究与后来的世界主义研究联系在一起，同时展示了学术界的文学和文化批评是如何......
{"title":"Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction by Bruce Robbins (review)","authors":"Robert T. Tally Jr.","doi":"10.1353/abr.2023.a921801","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2023.a921801","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction</em> by Bruce Robbins <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Robert T. Tally Jr. (bio) </li> </ul> <em><small>criticism and politics: a polemical introduction</small></em> Bruce Robbins<br/> Stanford University Press<br/> https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=34344<br/> 272 pages; Print, $24.00 <p>Early in <em>Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction</em>, Bruce Robbins tells of the time when his daughter, at age seven or eight, was asked what her father did for a living, and she replied, \"Daddy is a criticizer.\" Robbins notes that this is basically accurate (both about him and his profession), and he then asserts that \"One point of this book is to explain to literary critics and interested others how and why our discipline criticizes and why such work is worth doing, even when it doesn't seem very nice.\"</p> <p>It might be best to approach <em>Criticism and Politics</em> first by focusing on its subtitle, which some readers might find a bit jarring. Attaching the idea of a polemic to that of an \"introduction\" produces a sort of estrangement effect, particularly as \"mere\" introductions to literary and cultural criticism over the years have mostly sought <em>to appear</em>, if not always <em>to be</em>, disinterested, even objective. Polemics, on the contrary, are always situated and engaged, coming as <strong>[End Page 153]</strong> they do from a particular position with respect to others in their domain, and the thrust of the discourse is normally <em>athwart</em> those in favor of the object of the polemic in question. And yet, as we frequently find, those who would appear disinterested in introducing an inherently political subject likely have their own political agendas, whether they care to admit it or not. The main thesis of <em>Criticism and Politics</em>, in fact, is that criticism <em>is</em> and <em>has always been</em> political, and hence that efforts to depoliticize criticism or to suggest that criticism could be practiced entirely outside of political considerations not only mischaracterize the project of criticism but also oppose it. As Robbins discusses at length, one can identify clear relationships between anti-critical forms of criticism, within academe and outside of it, and real political forces that endanger education, reinforce structures of inequality, promote a neoliberal economic order, and fan the flames of racist, nationalist, or otherwise exclusionary social movements. Under the circumstances, a self-consciously <em>polemical introduction</em> to the subject makes a good deal of sense.</p> <p>Robbins has been at this quite a while and is now unquestionably a leading authority on criticism and politics (and the politics of criticism). His first book, <em>The Servant's Hand: English Fiction from Below</em> (1986), is a goo","PeriodicalId":41337,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW","volume":"286 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140105438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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