March 2010 – The Habit of Tlön

March 23, 2010March 23, 2010

Very Interesting

(Crossposted at Arcade.) Is it possible to organize departments of literature, culture, or humanistic study without norms, or around “the general norm that there are no norms,” as Meredith Ramirez Talusan suggests in a provocative Arcade comment? If it were possible, would such an approach be desirable? Should we replace questions of the form “Does this … Continue reading Very Interesting

March 13, 2010March 14, 2010

From “Happy Days” to “Mad Men”

(Crossposted at Arcade.) Some recent conversations on Arcade have gotten me thinking about midcentury America, or rather our idea of the midcentury as a privileged moment of literary production, consumption, and promise. In particular, I’ve been turning over Natalia Cecire’s query, “[W]hat is to be gained in mourning the passing of a genre or a … Continue reading From “Happy Days” to “Mad Men”