Sunday, 17 July 2005

Indulgences; or, Today The Personal Trumps All

I speak about personal matters so frequently here I don't even have a category for it.  So I suppose "Shameless Self-Promotion" must suffice, though I'm not really promoting anything.  Nor am I not promoting it shamelessly.  But here goes:

On this day, July 17th, six years ago, Mr. A. Cephalous and Mrs. Little Womedievalist became Mr. and Mrs. A. Cephalous for the first time.  To please the Mr.'s father, they did it a second time a month later.  Only Jewishly. 

(That's right: I've been married for six years and am barely in spitting distance of thirty.  What can I say?  She's from Mississippi; I'm from Louisiana.  We consider ourselves lucky we didn't marry kin.)

Jul 17, 2005 2:52:46 PM | Shameless Self-Promotion

7 Comments

Walter Wadiak

Congratulations! And good job not marrying your 'kin'. Love, trust, and genetic diversity are the pillars of a successful relationship.

Posted by: Walter Wadiak | Sunday, 17 July 2005 at 03:07 PM

Stephen Schryer

Congratulations! Joanne and I just celebrated our third two weeks ago. That genetic diversity doesn't mean that you two will be producing mini-acephali any time soon, though? Right?

Posted by: Stephen Schryer | Sunday, 17 July 2005 at 03:47 PM

Adam Kotsko

Congratulations

Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Sunday, 17 July 2005 at 03:58 PM

Scott Eric Kaufman

Thank you, thank you, and have no fear, spawn aren't in the offing anytime soon. Or, quitely possibly, anytime.

Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Sunday, 17 July 2005 at 04:10 PM

Amardeep

You're from Louisiana? How did that happen?

Oh, and congrats.

Posted by: Amardeep | Sunday, 17 July 2005 at 07:50 PM

Scott Eric Kaufman

Amardeep, they let four us leave every year, to witness to the nation the joys that are Cajun food, LSU football and good ol' fashioned Southern bigotry.

Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Sunday, 17 July 2005 at 11:25 PM

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Warranted Bombast? Or, Apposite & Oppositional Rhetoric I’m a fan of American Literary Scholarship. So much so I have a complete set (atop the shelves on the left). When the latest edition arrived, I scanned it 1) to check if someone else’s written my dissertation yet and 2) to ensure that my notion of where the field’s headed is more accurate than not. (For those interested: my dissertation’s still mine and only a minor course-correction’s needed.) I’ve read all the sections relevent to my work and I have but one complaint: the rhetoric. I’ll focus on Michael J. Kiskis’ otherwise excellent round-up of “Late-19th-Century Literature,” but this inflated rhetoric peppers the entire volume. Kiskis’ review opens thus: The scholarship produced during 2003 is a complex mix of perspectives and materials: in the host of essays and books we see evidence not only of the end of the academic apartheid that relegated women and minority writers to the margins but also a greater awareness of the intricate relationship between genre and challenges of aesthetic and political intention and result. (275, emphasis mine) Now, I should say that the presence of that rhetorical bombast doesn’t diminish the intelligence or comprehensiveness of Kiskis’ review. That said, doesn’t the appellation “academic apartheid” 1) trivialize the consequences of historical apartheid and, in so doing, participate in the same logic of marginalization it wants to denounce? 2) needlessly needle those critics who choose to work on canonical or semi-canonical authors? 3) create the impression that the field, as currently constituted, is almost perfect? Three sentences later, Kiskis condescends again: “We are growing out of separate spheres; we are finding our way to an adult appreciation of complex and compelling literary and cultural meaning” (275). Earlier critics apparently lacked the maturity necessary to cultivate an “adult appreciation” of “literary and cultural meaning.” The insult’s implied but easily deduced. Now, I’m compelled to note that I’m satisfied with the direction of the field, as the course Kiskis charts is one in which ever more emphasis is placed on the historical context of literary works. However, even though I belong to Kiskis’ intended audience, I still find his self-congratulatory magniloquence as shrill as it is unnecessary. [X-posted on the Valve.]

Scott Eric Kaufman

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