Symposium

A Virtual Symposium on George Cotkin's article "The Democratization of
Cultural Criticism"

H-Ideas: A member of H-Net Humanities & Social Sciences OnLine

http://www.h-net.org/~ideas/

April 28-29, 2005

Have cultural barbarians vanquished the life of the mind?

Absolutely NOT, observes intellectual historian George Cotkin, a Professor
of History at California State University, San Luis Obispo. He decries the
"mourners" among "our present generation of cultural critics" who believe,
in the wake of postmodernism and the commercialization of culture, that the
practice of cultural criticism "has been cast adrift, without any firm basis
for judgments."

In an article published in the July 2, 2004 issue of the Chronicle of Higher
Education, Cotkin challenges the view that seems to prevail among a certain
group of "Jeremiahs" who, he asserts, "huddle around their sad conclusion
that serious cultural criticism has fallen into a morass of petty bickering
and bloated reputations." To other observers of the same cultural trends,
the barbarians have not merely vanquished intellectual discourse they have
obliterated the landscape of the mind. Our brave new world is not controlled
by an all-powerful state but a seemingly benign market-Big Brother has been
trumped by Big Sam Walton.

The virtual symposium will begin at 10:00 am (EST) on Thursday, April 28,
2005, at which time Professor Cotkin's Chronicle article, along with a new
introduction, will be published electronically on the H-Ideas website,
www.h-net.org/~ideas/.

Rejoinders by Professors Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn of the Maxwell School at
Syracuse University and David Steigerwald of Ohio State University will be
published electronically shortly thereafter. After a further round of
responses by the three primary participants, the symposium will be opened up
to members of the H-Ideas community.

Together with our distinguished participants, the members of the H-Ideas
editorial team look forward to the active participation of the general
public and the academic community at-large. Following electronic publication
of the papers and the first round of responses, H-Ideas subscribers will
have the opportunity to participate in what we hope will be a healthy
intellectual debate on the current state of cultural criticism. In order to
participate, you must register as a participant in the forum.

Please follow the four steps listed below:

Visit http://www.h-net.org/~ideas/forum/ and click on the button titled
"Register".
You will be asked to agree to the "Registration Agreement Terms".
The next screen will ask you to enter a username, password and some
information about yourself. Please try and fill in at least your "Location",
"Occupation" and "Interests".
Click on "Submit" at the bottom of the page and your registration is
complete.

Panel Participants
George Cotkin: Professor of History at California State University, San Luis
Obispo and author of most recently, Existential America (Johns Hopkins,
2002).

Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn: Professor of History, Maxwell School of Syracuse
University and author of most recently, Race Experts: How Racial Etiquette,
Sensitivity Training, and New Age Therapy Hijacked the Civil Rights
Revolution (W. W. Norton and Co., 2001) and a forthcoming book on post-WWII
cultural critics.

David Steigerwald: Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University
and author most recently of Culture's Vanities: The Paradox of Cultural
Diversity in a Globalized World (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004).

The H-Ideas Editorial Team

Costica Bradatan, Miami University
Harald E. Braun, University of Liverpool Stephen J. Burge, Hidden Lake
Academy Raymond J. Haberski, Marian College Neil Brody Miller, Southeast
Missouri State University

Costica Bradatan, PhD

Department of Philosophy,
Miami University,
Hall Auditorium, 221
Oxford, OH 45056
USA

http://www.users.muohio.edu/bradatc/