20th Century Notes

by Cliopatria

Richard Canning,"California Dreaming," Literary Review, October, reviews Christopher Isherwood's The Sixties: Diaries, II, edited by Katherine Bucknell.

Dalton Conley,"Making Sense of the Sixties," CHE, 24 October, invites comparison with Rick Perlstein,"That Seventies Show," Nation, 20 October.

Christopher Hart,"Rebel in a Tweed Suit," Literary Review, October, reviews William Cook, ed., Kiss Me, Chudleigh: The World According to Auberon Waugh.

William Dalrymple reviews Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare, ed., Under the Sun: The letters of Bruce Chatwin for the TLS, 27 October.

Patricia Cohen,"In Writings of Obama, a Philosophy Is Unearthed," NYT, 27 October, features James Kloppenberg's research on the intellectual development of Barack Obama. He presented his findings at the third annual conference on American intellectual history organized by the bloggers at U. S. Intellectual History.

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Ralph E. Luker - 10/31/2010

There's a link to a recording of Kloppenberg's "Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope and the American Political Tradition" at U. S. Intellectual History.

Chris Bray - 10/31/2010

I understood what the applause was for, yes. I'm saying that I was unimpressed by Kloppenberg's performance, at least as far as I'm able to understand it at secondhand from an fawning article in the New York Times.

As I understand it, Kloppenberg's argument is that a longtime academic with no scholarly monographs to his name, no research articles to his name -- and, indeed, no apparent research interests -- is a "true intellectual."

Second -- and again, as I understand it from a report, not having been there -- Kloppenberg compared Obama's intellect to that of Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln. Jefferson personally wrote the Declaration of Independence; Madison personally wrote the Constitution; Lincoln personally wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. Does Kloppenberg identify the transformative state documents that Obama personally authored, or are we counting "Yes we can!" as a great piece of intellectual production?

I am saying that I am not impressed by Kloppenberg's performance: the author of "The Audacity of Hope" is a towering intellectual figure -- a lot like Jefferson. If you were there and the NYT got it wrong, I would love to hear what I'm missing.

Tim Lacy - 10/31/2010

Ralph: Thanks for the shout out.

Mr. Bray: The applause was for Kloppenberg's performance as much as the content. Indeed, I wouldn't generalize unanimous support for Obama across the spectrum of intellectual historians. - TL

Chris Bray - 10/28/2010

Give it a few days -- it'll be listed on recovery.gov under "blow jobs created or saved." Jared Bernstein can use it in a speech.

Ralph E. Luker - 10/28/2010

In this market economy, I'd say a blow job was better than no job.

Chris Bray - 10/28/2010

...that I would set this piece of state celebrity worship against the NYT's recent hit piece on Julian Assange.

Chris Bray - 10/28/2010

"...his conclusion that President Obama is a true intellectual..."

"...a kind of philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history. 'There’s John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, then Abraham Lincoln and in the 20th century just Woodrow Wilson,' he said."

And those who heard the argument responded with "prolonged applause," finding that the presentation showed the way the wise philosopher king Obama is just like us. Amazing, that we should all be so special together.

This is not, sadly, an article from The Onion. At the risk of violating HNN's comment guidelines, I don't whether this one is better described as a blowjob or a circle jerk.