tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11122973.post116832832211008968..comments2024-02-08T05:04:18.484-08:00Comments on J'S THEATER: Poor Pessimists + Publish or PerishJohn Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08073378940347627766noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11122973.post-1168832603808577912007-01-14T19:43:00.000-08:002007-01-14T19:43:00.000-08:00Keguro, your take really made me think about the r...Keguro, your take really made me think about the representation of depression and its effects, and the pharmaceutical industry's skill at capitalizing on it. I read somewhere that there probably aren't more depressed people in the US, but just better diagnoses of it. But I'm not so sure. What is depression, really? That is, what is it outside of a strict psychological and biochemical account? Philosophically what is it? I guess I'd agree with your suggestion, except that some depressives *do* have futurity as a goal, only they may not have any idea of how to get there, which exacerbates the depression. There is also physiologically induced depression, which is to say, chemical or other imbalances in the brain that can lead to depression. But accounting for this, your suggestion is catching; the widespread American ethos points to a kind of outwards happiness, so perhaps the mass medication to "cure" depression is in part a rescue and recuperation effort on behalf of one major notion of Americanness. Interestingly, I also recently saw "authoritarianism" described as a "failure of imagination," though I suppose that those failing the test were the people buying into the authoritarian system, and not the authorities themselves, whose visions are often rich and fanciful--fancifully terrifying and dangerous, that is.<BR/><BR/>Littlemilk, you're so right about Schiffrin's book. It's now almost passé in some regards, especially on the topic of the people running publishing these days. It's a call from a very distant era which wasn't that long ago. The rise of JIT publishing and other mechanisms have altered his argument to a considerable degree, but he's still very apt for thinking about the main publishing conglomerates, the bookstores and the distribution companies.<BR/><BR/>Lack of job stability does hurt the masses of potential scholars, though I remember hearing the exceptions, like Erich Auerbach, who wrote <I>Mimesis</I> while fleeing the Nazi and far away from all his sources, occasionally held up as a model of tenacity. Okay--few are the Auerbachs out there, granted. I don't think the increasingly business-oriented model of higher education, like the government and most other sectors of our society, is as concerned about those "lost gems," especially in the humanities. Everything has come down to $, and I don't things are going to change anytime soon.John Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08073378940347627766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11122973.post-1168807140842059222007-01-14T12:39:00.000-08:002007-01-14T12:39:00.000-08:00J,Thanks for the heads up on the Boston Globe arti...J,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the heads up on the Boston Globe article. There has been much chatter about the shrinking university job market and the increasingly market driven pace of once traditional publishing houses for some time. The MLA report will hopeful get the ball rolling on this median in the road where young academics must try to tread.<BR/><BR/>Schiffrin's book is important in mapping out how the book business "was" vs. how it "is" now; but, unfortunately the problem is the lack of men like him found in the business. Bertlesmann's buy out of Random House was the piano that broke the camel's back. Schriffin's argument, let alone its implementation, may have ears and willing arms in the university, but in the corporate offices I am a little . . . excuse me . . . pessimistic. <BR/><BR/>The true loss in this scenario may be the gems of scholarship that can't be birthed due to a lack of job stability. I have often felt a bit more comfortable freelancing, reading and writing outside of it all. But security is an important prize and so is community.Littlemilkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08875308841224185781noreply@blogger.com