Author Archive

Ray Haberski

Book Review of *The Polymath*

British historian Peter Burke has written many books and essays exploring the history of knowledge. This new prosopographical study examines the careers of 500 polymaths over the last 500 years.  During this period of time, typically referred to as the “modern age,” learning increasingly was organized around an intellectual division of labor and the proliferation of super-specialists.  Burke’s polymaths worked in multiple fields, now considered completely separate disciplines, but his subjects insisted instead on the unity of knowledge.  Burke argues that, for this heresy, historians have generally treated polymaths with contempt.  Labeled “specialists in generalities,” polymaths are typically condemned for Read more

The Conservative Long Game in Higher Ed, Part 4: Weaponized Humor – Spoof Clubs, Publications, & Theater

In Resistance from the Right, Lauren Lassabe Shepherd shows us how conservative campus activists understood and marshaled the power of emotion. They realized that both humor and victimhood could be weaponized—used to manipulate the campus mood and perceptions of their commitments. Humor and victimhood afforded them the opportunity to gain listeners. Both involved theater and an audience. Shepherd dedicates a four-page section in chapter three to the topic of “Conservative Humor” (pp. 68-71), and that is the focus of today’s reflection. Members of YAF mimicked, borrowed, and stole the ideas and “strategies of their adversaries”—of campus leftists and Students for Read more