Grad Gift Idea

Just in case I have an extra few bucks I have been thinking about getting myself some little thing for finishing. Aside from Authenticity Hoax (which is too expensive to even seriously consider), the book I am mulling over the most is this new classic - and it's fairly cheap!

Amazon link.

ETA: A little birdie told me I am likely to receive The Authenticity Hoax for my birthday. I always loved a little birdie bearing good news. :)

Some Points from Evans & Deleyto, 1998 (Romance Genre Book)

Introduction: Surviving Love, Evans & Deleyto (1-14)

• while some form of "love" is universal, romantic love is culturally constructed
• romantic comedies reflect changes in "intimate culture"
• the current myth of romantic love is that the irrational passions of love and sex help people remove the inauthentic strictures placed on us by social conformity, thus it is the process through which we grow to know our real identity and "true self" (i.e. Foucault 1981)
• romantic comedy, nevertheless, has a conservative core

Love Lies: Romantic Fabrication in Contemporary Romantic Comedy, F. Krutnik (15-36)

• In Annie Hall, Alvy progresses through women who he tries to control, but the Jewish women he married he was unable to control - he sought in Annie a women he could dominate, intellectually, and tried to re-make her, but as she grew she out-grew him, denying him his dream of a woman he could control.
• Romantic comedies often rely on the crossing of borders.
• Romantic comedy often employs a fabrication or masquerade element - thus, they must balance the tension between "real" relationships growing out of falsehood. Modern intimate culture holds that one cannot find anyone to love their true selves, but that one must pretend or change in order to find and keep love.

Love and Other Triangles: Alice and the Conventions of Romantic Comedy, C. Deleyto (129-47)

• When sex was linked to reproduction, it was connected to communal survival and duty - thus, it was part of the transcendent order; when it became a matter of pleasure/identity/individual needs ("plastic sexuality" = sexuality parted from reproduction), it no longer required a transcendent element - in fact, a transcendent element would be counter-productive to the needs of personal choice. (Following Giddens 1992.)

The Fever and the Itch: Matching Plots in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, I.C. Santaolalla (148-67)

• read for use in interracial romance - read Wartenberg chap, as well, for this?
• these stories, and the reaction to them, highlight the ambiguity of Americans towards their own foundational myths of equality
• Hollywood is behind reality in terms of interracial coupling - while it is becoming more and more acceptable and popular in reality, film still has difficulty showing interracial romance (without making the romance about their interracial status), and still try to avoid showing interracial sex as much as possible
• popular notion that interracial sexuality is spurred by boredom, curiosity and/or sexual stereotypes being tested/explored (Spike Lee's position here)

Some General Ideas from these Readings (Useful for Q&A)

• Annie Hall shows Alvy's romances with Jewish women fail - does this harm my theory? No, because he had idealized the Gentile woman to such an extent that he had constructed his memory of these women along the lines of negative images of Jewish women (shrill/high-strung; grasping; dull) -- however, after his experience with Annie, Alvy reviews his life and cannot understand why his younger self had rejected Alison - this was because Annie had cured him of this idealization
• Annie Hall quote: "...all those PhDs are in there, like, discussing modes of alienation and we'll be in here quietly humping" - sex is, for Alvy, the ultimate connection, and, being purely physical, is the exact opposite of the theoretical contemplation of alienation.

***

Ref:

Terms of Endearment: Hollywood Romantic Comedy of the 1980s and 1990s. Edited by P.W. Evans and C. Deleyto. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University, 1998.

13 Days til D-Day

Spent the day reading extra stuff, just in case someone asks about stuff I didn't have time to include in the dissertation. I think it is a lot easier to answer questions about what you did than about some of the things you didn't do.

And, no, "Huh - well, I didn't include that because this is the first I've heard of it," is not a great answer. I think I could answer that way once, maybe, about something minor, but any more than that and I'd look a fair jackass.

I'm looking at defence down the barrel now, folks. eeek!

Disenchantment/Demystification

Question: What is something you wished you had developed more in this work?

I do wish I had gone into more depth with the effects of disenchantment in the post-Enlightenment world. Though the loss of this factor (that of materializing the "real world" and removing divinity and magic from life aspects) has some positive elements (in terms of how it can reduce the oppressive power of religion or the elite), it has had some negative aspects, as well - for religious minorities, particularly, it has uprooted much of our sense of collective identity/purpose, and emptied our lives of a higher, united goal and place in the world. It has also had an incalculable affect on how the environment and animals are treated/seen. Specifically for Judaism, Frida Kerner Furman (following Hans Mol), in her book Beyond Yiddishkeit, notes that disenchantment has had a lasting impact on the ways Jews see their identity, and has resulted in a desacralization of identity, which has required a change in how liberal Jewish congregations pinpoint and meet the needs of their modern congregations - i.e. they must cultivate a collective sense of identity (in order to propagate Jewish culture and peoplehood) via other means than divine place. Though, I should note she does not necessarily see this has a bad thing, but it is a challenge. These issues were certainly present in my dissertation, but I did not spend significant time going into them as their own section.

(Or, possibly, a question could come directly about disenchantment itself and its role in liberal malaise.)

The Price of Books

Sorry, but let me have a "when I was a kid" moment, here. I remember when I could pick up a new book and a snack for well under $10.

I mean, jeepers - $35 for a book? Really? That is 5% of my rent!

For a book.

True, it's a trendy hardcover, and not the pulp novels I used to buy, but even those are creeping into the double digits, slowly but surely. But, even then, I should not consider $20 a "good price." It's a book, for the love of Mike.

I do have the option of buying it in phantom electronic data bits form for around $17. Because, you know, I love to pay double-digits for 1s and 0s.

Shouldn't we be more upset about this, really? Or do we, as a culture, no longer riot when the price of bread (or books - both essentials) go too high for the masses to afford? Are we really ok with education, enlightenment and perspective belonging solely to the elite?

I suppose, one could say that only the elite want to read now. I think this is bunk, though - if the non-elite no longer want to read, the fact that they can't do so and still buy groceries might have something to do with it.

Is it a wonder people no longer read? I am not sure I can afford to do so any more.

And, if Igon was right and print is essentially dead, then lord have mercy on our pathetic souls if we as a culture (and a voting populace) are left to make do with Spike TV and Fox News.com.

Venice may finally be sinking, folks.

/end self-important, pretense-filled rant that really stems from the sour grapes of not being able to afford a book I want. Translation: wah-wah-wah.

Important To-Do

Look at Bowling Alone.

This is essential to do before defence.

(Advisor has suggested it multiple times, but I ignored this, so I cannot fail to have some idea of it in my head at defence, because it is likely to come up in some fashion, either in questions or, heaven forbid, in edits.)

Also: Have a good answer about social capital ready... Perhaps sneak it into dissertation somewhere?

Bowling Alone website.

NPR interview.

The Authenticity Hoax, Andrew Potter (2010)

Summary:
We live in a world increasingly dominated by the fake, the prepackaged, the artificial: fast food, scripted reality TV shows, Facebook "friends," and fraudulent memoirs. But people everywhere are demanding the exact opposite, heralding "authenticity" as the cure for isolated individualism and shallow consumerism. Restaurants promote the authenticity of their cuisine, while condo developers promote authentic loft living and book reviewers regularly praise the authenticity of a new writer's voice.

International bestselling author Andrew Potter brilliantly unpacks our modern obsession with authenticity. In this perceptive and thought-provoking blend of pop culture, history, and philosophy, he finds that far from serving as a refuge from modern living, the search for authenticity often creates the very problems it's meant to solve.

What does it mean to be authentic? For many, the search for the authentic provides a powerful source of meaning in a secular age, allowing a person a unique personal identity in a world that seems alienating and conformist. This demand for authenticity—the honest or the real—is one of the most powerful movements in contemporary life, influencing our moral outlook, political views, and consumer behavior.

Yet according to Andrew Potter, when examined closely, our fetish for "authentic" lifestyles or experiences—organic produce and ecotourism, bikram yoga and performance art, the cult of Oprah and the obsession with Obama—is actually a form of exclusionary status seeking. The result, he argues, is modernity's malaise: a competitive, self-absorbed individualism that creates a shallow consumerist society built on stratification and one-upmanship that ultimately erodes genuine relationships and true community.

Weaving together threads of pop culture, history, and philosophy, The Authenticity Hoax reveals how our misguided pursuit of the authentic exacerbates the artificiality of contemporary life that we decry. Potter traces the origins of the authenticity ideal from its roots in the eighteenth century through its adoption by the 1960s counterculture to its centrality in twenty-first-century moral life. He shows how this ideal is manifested through our culture, from the political fates of Sarah Palin and John Edwards to Damien Hirst and his role in contemporary art, from the phenomenon of retirement as a second adolescence to the indignation over James Frey's memoir. From this defiant, brilliant critique, Potter offers a way forward to a meaningful individualism that makes peace with the modern world.

Table of Contents
Introduction The Jargon of Authenticity
One The Malaise of Modernity
Two A False Return
Three The Creative Self
Four Conspicuous Authenticity
Five Perils of Transparency
Six Vote for Me, I’m Authentic
Seven Culture Is for Tourists
Eight The End of History
Conclusion Progress, the Very Idea
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Interesting points:

“My argument is not that once upon a time we lived authentic lives – that we used to live in authentic communities and listen to authentic music and eat authentic food and participate in authentic culture – and now that authenticity is gone,” Potter writes. No, his argument is that now that we've rejected the religious practices, social mores and hopeful belief in progress of our parents, we make do with Oprah's Book Club and Real Simple magazine, and call it authenticity instead.

About this Author
Andrew Potter is the coauthor of the international bestseller The Rebel Sell. A journalist and writer, he holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto, and he is a former assistant professor at Trent University in Peterborough. He has also taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Quebec at Montreal. He is currently a public affairs columnist with Maclean’s and an editor with Canadian Business magazine.

CITATION:
Potter, Andrew. 2010. The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves. McClelland & Stewart. (308 pages.)

***
Questions that might stem from this:

Does this book mean that authenticity is becoming a fore-front of modern life?
Yes, I think Taylor was right when he pin-pointed authenticity as the high moral virtue of modern life, and I think this book is showing signs of this seeping into everyday consciousness.

Why is authenticity so popular these days?
I would rather say, reflecting Potter's work, that it is actually unpopular these days. I think this is because people bought the notion that traditions were oppressive, so they ran after authenticity, believing one could create this thing completely sui generis, only to discover they were no happier than their forebearers, so now they blame authenticity, when, really, they need to look harder at how they are defining and creating the authentic.

How does this book improve the profile of my research for publication?
I think the popularity of this book will certainly help me publish an article or two, and possibly the whole dissertation, as long as I can do it before the ennui and backlash results. I certainly plan on writing a review of it, once I can convince my authentically stingy self to buy it. (Maybe I will get it for myself as a grad present.)

In what ways does my research parallel Potter? Refute or contradict?
I think, from the reviews, my work parallels his greatly by critiquing the shallowness of individualist, liberal and personalist notions of what constitutes the self and happiness. We agree on the fact that appetites and transitory notions of personal happiness, without connections to others (i.e. social capital), cannot sustain satisfaction or lifelong happiness. I think his work is valuable, as is mine, in critiquing the role of pop culture in selling us on this commercial notion of romantic happiness. He goes further than I did in exploring the commercial aspects of this happiness, though I do have some of that in there with the marketplace theory of liberal self-building. However, I think my work refutes his by having a differing definition of "authentic" - I see it not as a thing, but as a category, and to fix this malaise all one must do is open that category's definition. I seem to not agree with Potter that authenticity itself is the problem. I think authenticity is, indeed, a prime goal of life. To trash that just because people have defined it poorly is rather like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (Of course, I have not read his "solution," so we might be closer on that than the reviews imply.) I believe the difference is that Potter really has two terms: authentic and "authentic," whereas I have just the one - that which we define as authentic that actually works for us. He rails against the "authentic," just as I critique it, but I think we both embrace the authentic to some extent. He just doesn't seem to look to communitarianism as much as I do for the solution.

Does this book hurt my reliance upon on authenticity as a meaningful link between liberalism and communitarianism?
Not at all. My inclusion of communitarian ideas of the authentic, which, I gather, is an innovation in my work, takes authenticity out of the hands of the personalists and opens the definition up to less shallow means/modes of the authentic. For this reason, I still contend that authenticity is an important goal of life.

How does my work change the definition of authenticity?
By including communitarian notions of authenticity, I am taking it away from the transitory - my work suggests that extreme individualists are wrong when they say that tradition harms the authentic self. Rather, my work suggests that one also hamrs the authentic when one ignores one's traditions. By using the contradictory definitions found in Sartre, I make the link between tradition and individualism, to come to a fuller idea of the authentic. This book doesn't harm my understanding - in fact, I think my understanding shows the ways that Potter is willfully setting authenticity in the worst possible light, when he should be shooting at better targets.

Why is my authenticity different from Potter's?
My authentic is a definition, not a thing. To put it this way - for me, the War on Terror makes no sense, because "terrorism" is not a thing that can be stopped. It is a category of behaviour that will always just crop up when people have need of it. Such is authenticity - it is not a thing (not yoga or individualism or romance), but, rather, an aim. If we keep it as a simple word - that which is true, voluntary and good for your soul - then it really can be anything, can't it? The authentic is in the eye of the beholder. I merely suggest, like Potter, that modern life is failing to make/keep us happy, so, therefore, we need to take a second look at what constitutes the authentic - not whether we need to second guess whether the authentic is a good thing to begin with.

How would this book have changed your work if it had come out soon enough for you to use it?
That is a good question, which, sadly, we cannot answer without a time machine. However, I think that I likely would have included some dialogue with this book in my conclusion, or in my chapter on authenticity - both an agreement and critique. It might have helped me refine my argument or definitions. It also might have inspired me to do more with authenticity than I did - which is one of my regrets with this work as it is, as I feel I could have done more with the authentic if it had have occurred to me sooner in the writing process. I have a feeling this book will inspire some re-writes in the process between dissertation to book, which I look forward to.

***
Sources:
McClelland & Stewart
HarperCollins
Amazon
Globe and Mail review.
Excerpt here.

Podcast interview with Potter.

Something Springy and Cheerful

Sad Losses

Today, we mourn the death of Miramax, which has put out some of the better films produced over the past 31 years. So, we can all say the bum economy has truly hit us in a significant way... you know, in ways other than personal unemployment and hardships, etc.

We have also lost J.D. Salinger, writer and generational mind blower.

Also, R.I.P. Zelda Rubinstein. Walk towards the light, Zelda.

The world is a lot less cooler today.

Dear Lord, No!

Disgusting.

You've been warned.

Just think of happy things

Sure, I'm broke and really behind in my work, but I'm pretty happy, all things considered.

Declan and I have been reading Peter Pan before bed, and I really have to recommend it - even to those without children. That thing is pretty clever, and in what other kids' book would you find the word "orgy"? J.M. Barrie might be one of my new favourite authors, right up there with Austen and Trollope.

Where Art Thou, Friedman?

Damn, damn, damn. This stupid chapter is due in a matter of days, and I can't find my Friedman book... It's a thick, yellow paperback... How could it be lost???

Oh man. I got the luck.

Reading The Bluest Eye

The perfect line:

"There is really nothing more to say -- except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how."

FANTASTIC!

I loved this book as a kid (my favourite, actually; I still have it, so I've scanned it above). Let's hope the movie version is worth the excitement it caused when I came across it today!

EEE!

PS> Digging this book out unearthed a stack of other books from my childhood I had stored. I think it's time to start reading to the baby. I think I'll start with Mr Fox - it seems fitting to keep that tradition going.

Expecto Patronum

I am trying to get back to work after a very nice break for the weekend, but I find myself a bit low. The apartment is a mess, so maybe that is the cause. Whatever it is, I have work to do, but I find myself listless and unmotivated. Dull, bored, boring and lazy. What is this coming over me? Well, all I can to do is pound away at it. Start with the mindless tasks and work my way up to the more imaginative stuff. If the self-motivation doesn't work, then the drone-motivation will have to.

Something has to break me from this doldrum. And fast.

Meanwhile, in better news, this weekend I read the new (and final) Harry Potter novel, and I have to say it did not disappoint. A very exciting read. Strange to think that in a few more years, I might have a little HP fan of my own running around. If you've read the book, you can only imagine how the epilogue effected those pregnant hormones of mine, and I can't help but see a little dark-haired boy in a red and gold scarf, who looks an awful lot like Murph, curled up with the Year One novel in his hands.

So that brings a ray of sunshine.

Make a Little Love. Do a Little Reading. Exercize the Whole You!

World Book Day is here, again (celebrated in March in Ireland and the UK).

International Book Day was started by booksellers in Catalonia in 1923 to commemorate the deaths of both Shakespeare and Cervantes (April 23, 1616), and coincides with their Lovers' Day, which is traditionally celebrated by the exchange of flowers and books... Seems that they know which is the true sexiest organ, huh?

Have fun!

Because I Haven't Had Enough of Books...

A meme of a higher category supplied by a blog of finer quality:

1. One book that changed your life:
Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
The Penguin Complete Works of Jane Austen
(Yes, that is probably technically cheating, but tough.)

4. One book that made you laugh:
Groucho Marx, Memoirs of a Mangy Lover

5. One book that made you cry:
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

6. One book that you wish had been written:
Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Alfred Rosenberg, The Myth of the 20th Century
... or any of the 40 books haunting my life right now for this comp, especially a certain book about a certain Lotus that can kiss my arse.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
Thomas Tweed, Our Lady of the Exile

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Qur'an

10. Now tag five people:
Since tagging has almost lost me one very dear friend, and alienated dozens more, I leave it up to you to take this as you will.


I will add one more: The most meaningful book you've ever read. For me, definitely the Song of Songs. I could re-read that a million times and never get tired of it. It's one of those things that grows with you, I guess.

Heat and the CBC

Today is projected to be the hottest December day in recorded history in Ontario. Toronto will likely go to 15, and we are at about 12. I must admit it is scary to wear a t-shirt and cardy at 9am down to the corner store on December 17th, and break a sweat. Today seems like a day to get outside a bit, methinks. These legs could use a stretch.

However, while you enjoy the heat, take a moment to remember the polar bears, upon whose graves we are enjoying this weather.

(And when you light up that murdered tree, as well, I could say, but that wouldn't be very festive, would it?)

***

I am listening to the CBC right now, to an interview with historian Jan Gross, author of Neighbours. He is talking of his newest book Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz.

Gross' books are always worth a read, if for no other reason than the fact that they almost always kick up a (expletive deleted) storm. Though people have accused him of anti-Polish bias, his work seeks to bring to light the role of non-Jewish people other than Germans in the Holocaust. While many Poles did help Jews during the War, many also offended, and it helps no one to make idols of evil out of the Germans alone. I suspect that the truth lays somewhere between the common demonizing German exceptionalism and heated belief in full Polish collaboration, but it is always important to open the mind to as many angles as possible. And Jan Gross makes a good and horrible read at the same time, and I can't wait to get my hands on this book.

So, Santa, if you are listening to the lists of Jews this year (which I think you should consider in order to help counter-act all the nasty going on in Iran right now), this book is my wish. In one of my socks or under my ficus plant. Your choice, big guy.

On a bright note: things are going to get a whole lot less lonely very soon.

*

Imagine a World Void of Worship

... You are now entering the Secularization Zone.

Today, and for the next week, comp books are all focusing on the once-popular Secularization Theory, now also known as the Secularization Myth by the Antis.

This Theory/Myth is based on the post-Enlightenment idea that religion will gradually just disappear as education, science, rationality, assimilation and consumerism all do their work. However reasonable this belief may have seemed in the 60s when it started, the political feel of the 80s, and certainly today's political climate, seems to blow it out of the water.


This week, I wade into the shoals of argument between some of the heavy hitters of the Secularization Debate (Berger, Casanova, Bruce, and Stark & Finke). Ultimately, my department wants me to come up with a well-structured argument for which side I come down on. Me, I'm not so good at taking sides really, but since my gut reaction to the Secularization Theory is "hogwash," I guess that gives me something to start with.

Today's reading: The Sacred Canopy, by Peter L. Berger, one of the canonical texts for the Pros.

I'll keep you posted.
*

Comp Hell

Must read. Don't want to. I wonder how many PhD candidates go on murder-suicide rampages each year under the influence of horrid and monotonous doctoral exam reading lists and tediously picky practice questions?

On the bright side, it seems it only takes an hour to read everything there is to know about the Psychology of Religion, and the field of Sociology of Religion is surprizingly bite-sized.


So, a few words of advice for the compers out there. In America is a fine picture, but should not be attempted when you are already kind of depressed about your upcoming exams. Also, when blue, cauliflower seems to help, especially when taken in large quantities and washed down with purple insta-juice crystals. Finally, when in doubt, skim, don't read. Your eyes will thank you.


Tomorrow brings Grimes' magnum opus on religion, ritual and media. I can only hope I get through it without serious injury or major tantrum. In the meantime, this is stuck in my head and won't go away. Good timing, eh?

Be well, world out there. Drop me a line, please. My walls are starting to talk to me, and I don't know how long I can hold out.