Over at the Jacobin blog, where I am now an occasional guest-blogger, my recent post on The Bleak Landscape of American Education, has generated an unexpected and sort of weird discussion on the intellectual history of fascism between me and historian Clare Spark. Check it out.
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Kurt Newman
April 15, 2014
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Every attempt at discussion with Clare Spark I’ve ever seen (or attempted myself, much to my regret) has gone similarly: Every word means what she wants it to mean; every word denotes a category which is specific and neatly bounded; every thinker fits into her categories despite all the evidence to the contrary. You used the phrase “down the rabbit hole” in that discussion: the only apt description of engaging with her work. Though “through the looking glass” works pretty well if the issue of race comes up…..
Does Professor Dresner have something to say to me that transcends a personal attack? I had thought that scholars who were comfortable with their own work did not have to resort to mud-slinging. Moreover, I cannot find a single instance where he has engaged me personally on any subject whatsoever.
It’s been a while, Ms. Spark. Not everything on the internet persists.
And I’m both perfectly comfortable with my own work, and stand by my description of your rhetorical engagement strategies, which was intended to put Dr. Hartman’s experience into context.
Readers of this blog might want to see this essay of mine from the alternative universe I am held to inhabit: http://clarespark.com/2011/06/30/links-to-review-essay-on-hemingway-spy-mission-to-china/. It was originally intended for the Journal of Cold War Studies at Harvard.