Andrew Hazlett discovers that following the keyword “humanities” on Twitter is not the best way to keep tabs on the discipline.
Oh, The Humanities
RIP Doris Lessing
Nobel laureate Doris Lessing passed away last night at the age of 94. The author of The Grass is Singing, The Fifth Child and The Golden Notebook took home the Nobel in 2007 for “subjecting a divided civilisation to scrutiny,” in the words of the prize committee.
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Dispatch from Wisconsin
Lorrie Moore writes about her home state of Wisconsin and its popular Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer. Also check out the Millions profile of Moore.
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Life After Boobie
Grantland‘s got a nice excerpt from Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights follow-up, After Friday Night Lights. The book was released last week by Byliner.
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Offshore Seinfeld
One Indian call center’s “culture training” involves the study of Seinfeld episodes, writes Andrew Marantz. Hopefully they don’t screen the Harold Pinter-inspired episode, “The Betrayal.” Meanwhile, Joshua Kurp has located most of George’s ex-girlfriends.
Kafka Who?
When you think “Franz Kafka,” it typically isn’t his sunny disposition that comes to mind. According to Reiner Stach, this new collection of ephemera, however, seeks to challenge the tired, old conception of Kafka-as-tortured neurotic. Here’s a Millions review of Stach’s twin biographies of Kafka, himself.
Up South
“Young black fiction writers in the U.S. often face a strange obstacle as they try to figure out who they are — it’s called American literature. A high number of pre-civil-rights-era novels by white American writers are likely to include tossed-off racial slurs and/or stock black characters, some of which make racially conscious readers want to hurl the book across the room, even if the wooly-headed pickaninnies are only peeking around a doorjamb on one page out of 400. There are exceptions, but shockingly few. You always have to brace yourself — always.” James Hannaham writes about growing up in Yonkers but finding himself in Southern literature.
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Hey, thanks for the notice! Big fan of The Millions (and the new design).
I don’t want to beat a dead (or dying) horse, but the “humanities” Twitter stream continues to crank out amusing/depressing commentary…
Case in point: “mann there supposed to be cute girls in humanities classes. the women look like chernobyl victims in here. this class must be hard. shit”
On the other hand, you also get kids tweeting things like: “Humanities is probably going to be the best class ever. :) I’m pumped!”
The thing that baffles me is that so many schools are apparently cramming everything from archaeology to philosophy to history to art criticism into *one* course. How the hell is that supposed to lead to anything worthwhile?