Terrific essay, Josh. Truly, high level. I have mixed feelings about Lawrence (who doesn't?) but I love him here, writing not as norm-analyzing scholar, rather as an evaluating critic calling the risible. I must say, too, as that NYC boy you've heard of occasionally listening to Paul Harvey on, I believe, WABC AM radio late at night, I didn't recall him as delivering quite that level of superlative panegyric. Wow! I regret every moment of my youth not spent milking a cow! :)
Many thanks, Jay -- high praise from a colleague whose sensibility I deeply respect. And, yes, Paul Harvey makes everyone feel inferior by comparison to the saintly farmer. Of course that farmer never really existed, but even people that somewhat resemble Harvey's portrait are the minority. Most farmland is controlled by corporations, very wealthy individuals (including professional athletes) or Chinese investors.
Thanks for this Joshua, I hadn't heard of Letters from an American Farmer before, and will now put D.H. Lawrence's Stories on my reading list, thanks for the link! The story about WVU caused quite a stir in the language teaching community, and seeing the client list of the HR company WVU hired to redesign their 'academic portfolio', I fear this is going to become a common theme.
On another note, I also thought it was interesting you taught Marie Louise Pratt's contact zone essay alongside the Letters, I've also taught that piece in my linguistics courses (if it's the one I think you're referring to as the link didn't seem to go through), although I came away with a slightly different reading of it. But I'm looking forward to reading it again in dialogue with the Letters (and Lawrence)!
I'd love to hear your alternate reading of Pratt! It's quite possible that I'm simplifying her argument here.
I'd not heard about the HR company that WVU hired, but of course they hired a consulting firm to oversee these cuts. Of course they did. This is the heart of my popular essay on academe suffering from foreign occupiers. Consultants like that have no real understanding of the programs they're dealing with, and it is a tragedy that people's lives are upended based on their so-called expertise. That might seem a little shrill, but the resource allocation to administrators and consultants during a time of scarcity for academic departments is really offensive to me.
I have to now read Letters From an American Farmer, Joshua. D.H. Lawrence, I thought I'd read all of him including his poetry, and I adore his paintings. I began reading Lawrence in my teens and never stopped but missed this piece he'd written and am glad to have found it.
Thanks, Mary! I think you'll find much to admire, as well as to critique, in LETTERS. I linked to the full text of Lawrence's STUDIES. His takedowns of Whitman and Franklin are similarly hilarious. Lawrence's parody of Whitman: "I AM HE THAT ACHES WITH AMOROUS LOVE." Haha. I've not looked at his critiques of Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, or Cooper, but I imagine the whole book would be a rollicking read.
Thanks, Nick. There is a lot I've left out (this is why people write scholarly monographs). But even excerpts from LETTERS are resonant across the years.
The ending has always intrigued me most. The retreat into the woods. The encounter with the horrors of the South that then drives him to return to a form of nativism or primitivism. There is a definitely a lot of idealism and nostalgia leading up to that point. But if you read this book alongside de Tocqueville, what a mind-trip!!! The whole ending deconstructs the lofty melting pot definitions of the American of the center of the text. America shifts from utopia to dystopia in the heart beat of a few chapters. Such a strange, weird text.
Terrific essay, Josh. Truly, high level. I have mixed feelings about Lawrence (who doesn't?) but I love him here, writing not as norm-analyzing scholar, rather as an evaluating critic calling the risible. I must say, too, as that NYC boy you've heard of occasionally listening to Paul Harvey on, I believe, WABC AM radio late at night, I didn't recall him as delivering quite that level of superlative panegyric. Wow! I regret every moment of my youth not spent milking a cow! :)
Many thanks, Jay -- high praise from a colleague whose sensibility I deeply respect. And, yes, Paul Harvey makes everyone feel inferior by comparison to the saintly farmer. Of course that farmer never really existed, but even people that somewhat resemble Harvey's portrait are the minority. Most farmland is controlled by corporations, very wealthy individuals (including professional athletes) or Chinese investors.
https://joshuadolezal.substack.com/p/professional-athletes-are-the-new
Thanks for this Joshua, I hadn't heard of Letters from an American Farmer before, and will now put D.H. Lawrence's Stories on my reading list, thanks for the link! The story about WVU caused quite a stir in the language teaching community, and seeing the client list of the HR company WVU hired to redesign their 'academic portfolio', I fear this is going to become a common theme.
On another note, I also thought it was interesting you taught Marie Louise Pratt's contact zone essay alongside the Letters, I've also taught that piece in my linguistics courses (if it's the one I think you're referring to as the link didn't seem to go through), although I came away with a slightly different reading of it. But I'm looking forward to reading it again in dialogue with the Letters (and Lawrence)!
I'd love to hear your alternate reading of Pratt! It's quite possible that I'm simplifying her argument here.
I'd not heard about the HR company that WVU hired, but of course they hired a consulting firm to oversee these cuts. Of course they did. This is the heart of my popular essay on academe suffering from foreign occupiers. Consultants like that have no real understanding of the programs they're dealing with, and it is a tragedy that people's lives are upended based on their so-called expertise. That might seem a little shrill, but the resource allocation to administrators and consultants during a time of scarcity for academic departments is really offensive to me.
I have to now read Letters From an American Farmer, Joshua. D.H. Lawrence, I thought I'd read all of him including his poetry, and I adore his paintings. I began reading Lawrence in my teens and never stopped but missed this piece he'd written and am glad to have found it.
On another and deeply disturbing note, I learned about the cuts at West Virginia University from John Halbrooks who writes : https://johnhalbrooks.substack.com and will be writing for us soon at https://innerlifecollaborative.substack.com. Halbrooks stands as a hope in the face of all you uncover here.
Fabulous essay with so many worthy links, Joshua.
Thanks, Mary! I think you'll find much to admire, as well as to critique, in LETTERS. I linked to the full text of Lawrence's STUDIES. His takedowns of Whitman and Franklin are similarly hilarious. Lawrence's parody of Whitman: "I AM HE THAT ACHES WITH AMOROUS LOVE." Haha. I've not looked at his critiques of Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, or Cooper, but I imagine the whole book would be a rollicking read.
Yes, yes, and yes. Essential reading. Love this text. Thanks for doing this close reading. Will comment more when I have a chance.
Thanks, Nick. There is a lot I've left out (this is why people write scholarly monographs). But even excerpts from LETTERS are resonant across the years.
The ending has always intrigued me most. The retreat into the woods. The encounter with the horrors of the South that then drives him to return to a form of nativism or primitivism. There is a definitely a lot of idealism and nostalgia leading up to that point. But if you read this book alongside de Tocqueville, what a mind-trip!!! The whole ending deconstructs the lofty melting pot definitions of the American of the center of the text. America shifts from utopia to dystopia in the heart beat of a few chapters. Such a strange, weird text.