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Uh first?
Foist.
Kim:
Second …. but how come?
The sun has already been up for an hour in Central Queensland so where is everyone?
Okay, Out of bed all you sleepy-heads!
It’s still Friday here in LALA land. That’s my excuse anyway…
I was surprised to see Rudd in Iraq today. Then I guess it makes sense given his incessant attention to fulfilling his promises as quickly as possible. Pulling out our on the ground military support earlier might actually improve relations with Iraq and expedite trade negotiations… sans AWB.
God, I’m up early today, determined to get an article I want to have published, edited to a publishable style. So, I hope and pray y’all have finished your Chrissie shopping and will be on-guard for debates!
Fiftfh.
You people cannot count.
Not up to five, anyway. Does this mean LP-ers are more likely to be left-side brainers than right side brainers? Or are we like the bulk of the population who use both sides of their brain but not simultaneously. [Smile]
bjohns,
Didn’t know little Kev had flown into a war-zone.Doesn’t seem like he went there and then got the troops to blare trumpets like Also-ran.Or am I mistaken that we have seen an end to phony militarism exploited for political purposes?
If so, the left side of my brain delights in it, and the right side is sort of saying okay too.
Some of you may recall that in last week’s Saturday Salon I made a comment about the current ant plague that seems to be happening in Armidale. Well, yesterday I inadvertently rid myt flat of ants. I had some canned peaches for breakfast and left the empty tin on th kitchen sink instear of immediately putting it in the garbage. A couple of hours later the tin was crawling with little ants, whereupon I seized the tin, put it in a plastic bag and dropped it in the wheelie bin.
No sight of an ant since.
Ant plague defeated, at least for now.
Greenfield wrote:
Yep, those K-Zone editors are tough. Is the article on a new confectionary or a Bratz doll?
David Rubie
I have never had an article published in my life (although I have never submitted one either). But I got 95% for a uni essay and 93% for another. Both lecturers said it was the highest mark they had given in many years, so I thought I might as well try and get them published somewhere.
Bloody hell. Christopher Pearson has gone even further off the deep-end. I suspect he may be caught in a rip somewhere off Glenelg and is heading steadily southward.
Apparently he’s in touch wif teh yoof:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22960753-5013596,00.html
CK
As I said to him on that other thread, he needs a jolly good seeing to.
“I have never had an article published in my life (although I have never submitted one either). But I got 95% for a uni essay and 93% for another. Both lecturers said it was the highest mark they had given in many years, so I thought I might as well try and get them published somewhere.”
Good for you, John. Go for it.
CK,
There’s probably very little I would agree with Pearson on, but in this case, I think teh yoof would enjoy following most of his advice.So thanks for this opportunity to launch into a comment mostly about books and DVDs and a little about music, which I hope other LP-ers will either emulate or take up.Music first. CP has excellent taste in music and opera and I wouldn’t disagree with any of his recommendations, though I wouldn’t describe some of it in the drivelly religious terms he does. Its all just beautiful music to listen to. I’m an old G&S fan since performing very badly in Pinafore in primary school, being utterly unmusical, but we all had to be in it.
Whatever he writes, Evelyn Waugh is always a joy. Exceedingly witty and sometimes very very funny. In my younger days I can recall being in paroxysms of laughter over a couple of his books.Scoop was one of them.
Once you get use to Thackeray’s peculiar voice, Vanity Fair is un-put-downable, but somehow for reasons I can’t define, I found the BBC DVD a little disappointing, and the recent Hollywood version disastrous.Anna Karenina is one of those tragic novels where you keep wishing the characters wouldn’t do what they do, but they do it anyway. A rewarding but emotionally draining experience. I have to disagree with him about Our Mutual Friend. It falls apart halfway through, and never recovers. Worse than the last chapter of Bleak House.It is a very bad introduction to Dickens. And I’m such an avid Dickens fan I give Dickens novels to friends as presents. I’m not a big White fan, but I did enjoy Voss. My favourite of his books is The Vivisector though he goes as a bit crazy about psychopomps in it. (Don’t ask). I definitely intend to check out Nabakov’s memoirs.Pearson does have a bit of a strange taste in Eliot. Daniel Deronda is interesting, but, in my opinion not a touch on that old tear-jerker, Silas Marner, or the genius of Middlemarch.Lampedusa’s The Leopard is a good read, but the Visconti movie is a sheer masterpiece and obligatory viewing for all lefties.
Over to the rest of you.
Anyone notice the whaling article in the age yesterday? it apparently made my marine biologist partner livid, so naturally, i want to have a squiz. only we can’t find it online…
much appreciated,
Carl!
Paul, I have been attempting to get back into reading novel mode with glasses in need of an update and the continuing search for the perfect reading globe, still unfulfilled.
On CP, I suspect that CK has been a bit hard. Though, it is difficult to imagine good ol’ Mr Chris and “teh yoof” at present opening time. Would it go something like this?
“Oh look uncle chris has given me a copy of “Voss”, geez, I wonder what that is all about? I hope you enjoy the red sox unc’… they are a replica of the ones the pope wears.”
Aye CK. It reads like being given a cricket ball as a kid and then having to listen to Uncle Chris go about “almost playing county cricket, where of course in those days we didn’t have pads” for an hour. Followed by a game out the back with Uncle Chris monopolising the bowling to demonstrate his “mean googly”.
We’re supposed to be in drought and being roughed up by global warming but outside my stall it’s hissing down! Could anyone explain to a poor horse what’s going on?
pyzo,
Apparently we’re experiencing La Nina.
But would you sit on Uncle’s knee while he read you some Lolita, Joe?
“I have never had an article published in my life (although I have never submitted one either). But I got 95% for a uni essay and 93% for another. Both lecturers said it was the highest mark they had given in many years, so I thought I might as well try and get them published somewhere.”
John Greenfield, 93-95 is usually awarded for publishable or close to publishable quality, so congratulations on that. Do you have an idea of where you’re sending your article/s? If these are among your first publications, can I recommend somewhere with a reputation for faster response to submissions and good reader reviews. It is always a temptation to aim for a particular high profile journal, but you should make sure that you are going to get a good, timely response, which is far more valuable for someone beginning on the publication cycle.
Only if unc’ offered me a drop or two of madeira, as well, Sir Enry.
I’m not cheap you understand.
I experienced La Nina, Paul. Boy, she was a hot little filly that one. Insatiable she was!
Klaus, K., do you know where horses can get things published?
Assuming the horse in question is interested in writing about humans as well, and not just about themselves, I would recommend they start here:
http://www.societyandanimalsforum.org/sa/index.html
Pyzo, if Klaus K cannot help with a publisher this one might be worth a go.
http://www.corporateinformation.com/Company-Snapshot.aspx?cusip=C300AX860
Geoff/Klaus
Thanks for the encouragement. If anyone here is an academic type who actually gets stuff published, I would be extremely grateful for any advice.
1. OK, essay one got 95%. My lecturer allowed me to exceed the word limit of 3,000 words because he was very interested in what I had been arguing in tutes, etc. Anyways, I submitted 7.500 words. It was critiquing the notion that the modern West’s stereotyping of the muslim orient started in fifth century BCE Greece, with Aeschylus’ The Persians.. It is basically a very closely argued critique of the very popular post-colonialist/Edward Saidian “Orientalism” thesis. In the process it also critiques those French structuralists and post-structuralists historians who argue that Greek dramatists (I focus overwhelmingly on Aeschylus) and historians (I focus only on Herodotus) who represent non-Greeks (especially Persians, Egyptians, etc.) in their works, are not representing these ‘Others’ at all, but are merely using the ‘Others’ as mirrors to present triumphalist literature on Greek superiority. The paper looks at literature, philology, art, archaeology, etc.
The main problem from a publishing perspcetive is that my lecturer liked my “robust” style of arguing (much milder than my style on LP, but you can probably get a whif.
, but said it might “alienate” others. SOOOO, what I have to is strip it back to much more calm and non-confrontational prose. There are only small segments where I “let rip” but I imagine most “serious” history/classics academic journals might not be so appreciative. All the arguments, critique of the prominent scholars, handling of the original sources was not faulted by my lecturer, so its mainly a style thing, especially as I take on the heaviest scholars who push this line.
OTOH, there are many non-academic journals around that would probably lap it up. For example, Quadrant. Anyway, I’m blind here, so any advice would be grateful.
Klaus K and joe2, you are both human legends. When the Melbourne Cups runs again I might have a few hot tips for you!
I am worried about one thing though. The Society and Animals talks about an author style guide. Do you know if they’ve written one for horses? If they haven’t, is that discriminatory? Would it worth getting a lawyer? Or should I contact Sarsaparilla?
Look, modestly speaking, I’m a bit of a four-footed trailblazer. I have much to offer humans I reckon even though they consigned so many of my relatives to the glue factory. We horses see things that humans don’t. And we are much kinder.
This image from the front page of the National Organ calls for a caption contest: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5812340,00.jpg
Klaus
2. One on the the extent to which popular protest ended Australia’s involvement in Vietnam got 94, but I was penalised 5 marks for going over the word limit. FASCISTS!
3. One that got 92, but it had one major flaw, which is easily fixed, which would have pushed up into the mid 90s. It was about “the extent to which homosexuality as we know it today existed in classical Greece.” As you can imagine it’s a critique of Foucault and his followers in Queer Studies, etc. But it also brings in a bit of neurobiology, physiology, and genetics, which I think gave it an edge.
4. A 90 for a pro-Zionist response to “why have the Americans failed to solve the Palestinian refugee problem?” It had a weakish conclusion which my lecturer said brought me down a bit. I nearly fainted, coz this lecturer (like most similar uni. lecturers is not known as a Zionist cheerleader. I laughed to him, “Jesus, this must have hurt you!” he merely said, “a very closely argued essay will always be rewarded regardles of the position it takes.” Yeah right.
Mmmm… working on that one CK…
…but this story should come as fair warning to all LP’ers who are tempted to look into a package inappropriatly.
“Husband stabbed for opening present early”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22963440-2,00.html
joe2,
Re the story about the Xmas present – Only in America.
CK,
Re caption : “Don’t you let anyone tell you this is Intelligent Design, kid.”
Carl!
Here is is. I think.
Shorter Erich Fitzgerald: Because we humans have not evolved far enough to walk and chew gum at the same time, it must follow that opponents of whaling are single-issue morons who cannot possibly care about the whole marine environment and the other creatures in it. Also, emotion. Emotional. Neh!
“While we target Japanese whaling with attention and political as well as emotional investment, we are being distracted from the plight of other whales and dolphins in far more dire straits than minke, or even humpback and fin whales. It was only this year that the baiji, or Yangtze River dolphin, was pronounced extinct.”
Yes Carl, it’s a pretty neat argument: ‘Look, behind you! China!’
Meanwhile, back in Australia’s economic zone…
What a deadhead.
JG: [Greek dramatists (I focus overwhelmingly on Aeschylus) and historians (I focus only on Herodotus) who represent non-Greeks (especially Persians, Egyptians, etc.) in their works, are not representing these ‘Others’ at all, but are merely using the ‘Others’ as mirrors to present triumphalist literature on Greek superiority.]
JG, presently reading “Persians” and agree that spin is spin whether it comes at you in a papyrus trireme, a swiftboat for truth, or delightfully arranged pages of iambic pentameter.
While boxing on with the gods on History Olympus is no doubt its own reward, there’s a nice little earner to be had with a sizzling script for “non-academic” types, say eg, “300″ fanciers who might appreciate the more “robust” elements of your style.
Enemy Combat
To be truthful I couldn’t give a flying fuck about serious academic journals. As Klaus says, the better ones have agonisingly long lag times. As I am more likely to be pursuing a Ph. D in Mathematics, rather than History/Classics, i think I’d just be tickled pink to have any of my humanities essays published in some mag/journal that is slightly more highbrow than Who Weekly and as you guess, I think I’d have a lot more fun being able to get published in a journal/mag that was more “liberal” in the styles it was happy publishing. But you know what they say, “buggers can’t be choosers.”
Are there any psychopharmacalogy types awake at the moment? I have been going through my Angels, AC/DC, Radiators, Cold Chisel, Jimmy and the Boys, and Bette Midler collection full-bore while sipping from Anna Winter-inspired Vodka and Limes as I wrestle with my Aeschylus, Edward Said, Herodotus, and Lacan musings. I dropped a Mogadon about an hour ago, and all of a sudden am totally awake and read to party.
WTF is going on? Said Moggie was taken to knock me out!
John Greenfield, I think you should aim for an academic journal because then you can cite your refereed, high quality journal article as a reason why you should be taken seriously as you take your usual interlocutors to task for their weak-mindedness. If you publish in Quadrant, you will mostly only be taken seriously by people who already agree with you. I hate to say it, but that is the status of that publication as it currently stands. There is little of the legacy of Donald Horne, or of other fine contributors throughout its history to be seen in it now.
If you are not interested in continuing to publish in the humanities, then it may in fact be worth the wait for a higher profile journal if you have the patience. I would only recommend something faster if you’re going to be trying to get into the rhythm of academic publishing, because you’ll need that feedback sooner rather than later as you prepare your next pieces.
I haven’t marked an enormous number of essays yet, but I have given very high marks to material I disagreed with, and my senior colleagues are more generous than I when it comes to that. I wouldn’t generalise, but I think is a stronger sense of professionalism in the humanities than credit is given for (although I’ve also heard of some really poor behaviour, but it’s usually directed at colleagues, not students). For me it always comes down to serious engagement with the ideas presented in the course: disagreement shouldn’t involve summary dismissal of what I’m trying to teach. Obviously said pieces were also well constructed, well argued, etc.
Everyone:
[i].
I hereby name this Saturday Salon “ON BEING PUBLISHED”.
[Why not? If corporate cowboys, fly-by-night companies and the white shoe brigade can name anything and everything they like, from football teams to public property, why can't I hop in for my chop too? Sorry Mark, Kim, Anna et collective
].
[ii].
Damn the ABC. Turned on Radio National just now expecting to hear another brilliant,enjoyable and informative Mark Steele lecture on history …. and they’ve put on a comedy in its place.
Bjohns [5]:
Not surprised Rudd went to Iraq and Afghanistan. As I said before, we have a very very different Prime Minister now; not necessarily nicer but certainly much more …. how shall I put it? …. commanding.
John Greenfield: “as I wrestle with my Aeschylus, Edward Said…”
Goodness gracious, what a thought. Aeschylus, as you must surely already know, is actually worthy of being, um, ‘wrestled with’. But Edward Said may be merely summarily dismissed with a healthy snicker and some mean remarks to his parents on a note in the report card, if not worse. btw, are you writing this stuff with a working reading knowledge of old Greek?
In my own experience, I find that the best and most interesting way to really examine or criticize the major Greek dramatists (plus that pesky comedian) is to, well, produce them. There’s no better literary essay on the Greeks than the actual flesh and blood Andrei Serban/La Mama/Great Jones Rep production of “Fragments of a Trilogy” (which roughly = Medea, Trojan Women, and Elektra), and its equivalents, (and yeah, I’ve seen some, uh, equivalents). But then each to his own, if you can really bring yrself to stand such well-meaning folks like Wm. Arrowsmith, Richmond Lattimore and Moses Hadas, after more than a tol’able while. Though I do remain solidly convinced that the Fitzgerald translation of the Iliad is an ongoing cause for celebration. Anyway, enjoy what you can!
I’m glad I’m reading Saturday Salon. It’s a valuable place for a horse to pick up writing and publishing tips and, if I ever attend a University, I’ll know about lecherers.
Did you humans know that, when the car came along and we horses were sent to the glue factories in the hundreds of thousands that we call it The Horse Holocaust?
How could humans who we served so well have treated us so badly.
“How could humans who we(horses) served so well have treated us so badly?”
Pyzo, well may you ask. Heard Margaret Atwood(a bit up herself but quite brilliant) read the following passage on RN’s bookshow years ago. Guaranteed to temporarily shred the limbic system of anyone who ever had a heart for neddys. There is something immensely moving about hearing great prose being read by a soul sympatico.
“‘Fools! Fools!’ shouted Benjamin, prancing round them and stamping the earth with his small hoofs. ‘Fools! Do you not see what is written on the side of that van?’
That gave the animals pause, and there was a hush. Muriel began to spell out the words. But Benjamin pushed her aside and in the midst of a deadly silence he read:
‘ ‘Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willingdon. Dealer in Hides and Bone-Meal. Kennels Supplied.’ Do you not understand what that means? They are taking Boxer to the knacker’s!’
A cry of horror burst from all the animals. At this moment the man on the box whipped up his horses and the van moved out of the yard at a smart trot. All the animals followed, crying out at the tops of their voices. Clover forced her way to the front. The van began to gather speed. Clover tried to stir her stout limbs to a gallop, and achieved a canter. ‘Boxer!’ she cried. ‘Boxer! Boxer! Boxer!’ And just at this moment, as though he had heard the uproar outside, Boxer’s face, with the white stripe down his nose, appeared at the small window at the back of the van.
‘Boxer!’ cried Clover in a terrible voice. ‘Boxer! Get out! Get out quickly! They’re taking you to your death!’
All the animals took up the cry of ‘Get out, Boxer, get out!’ But the van was already gathering speed and drawing away from them. It was uncertain whether Boxer had understood what Clover had said. But a moment later his face disappeared from the window and there was the sound of a tremendous drumming of hoofs inside the van. He was trying to kick his way out. The time had been when a few kicks from Boxer’s hoofs would have smashed the van to matchwood. But alas! his strength had left him; and in a few moments the sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died away. In desperation the animals began appealing to the two horses which drew the van to stop. ‘Comrades, comrades!’ they shouted. ‘Don’t take your own brother to his death! ‘ But the stupid brutes, too ignorant to realise what was happening, merely set back their ears and quickened their pace. Boxer’s face did not reappear at the window. Too late, someone thought of racing ahead and shutting the five-barred gate; but in another moment the van was through it and rapidly disappearing down the road. Boxer was never seen again.”
From Ch. 9, Animal Farm.
pyzo,
I know this is soppy, but I liked Black Beauty. Even now (about 10 years ago)I can’t read it without crying.It made me bawl as a kid, but I was a sensitive young lad back then. Now I’m just a weepy old man now.
Christopher Pearson would probably shudder in horror, but I have cried at the death of Little Nell, and Dombey and Son reduced me to tears the first time I read it. I cry often in movies, to the embarrasment of my less sentimental friends.
Klaus
I agree with you 100% about Quadrant – speaking to the converted and all that. I read it, because, well it is Quadrant and has such an iconic place in Australian conservative debate: not that I am a “conservative’ contrary to what a fellow-LPer accused me of yesterday! I read other Australian stuff too, like Arena, Dissent, and Lesbians on The Loose. I find The Monthly much more lowbrow than Quadrant, and have developed a constitutional loathing of Robert Manne (whom I have never met by the way, and has never done anything to me, my friends, or family). What about Meanjin and similar journals?
I hadn’t considered the halo effect that would follow having one’s very first published article in a prestigious rigorous peer-reviewed journal. A Quadrant debut would lead to snickers, “oh he’s just an op-ed ranter who could do with a proper education.”
What’s the protocol? Do I just ring up or email the editor of ten journals I think are relevant? JSTOR is a great place for a quick list, but is it the best you know of? Do the editors work with you in polishing the article, or is expected to be ready to go the first time they read it?
It seems just so presumptuous for an undergraduate (even if mature-aged) to do this. Whenever I am researching an essay, all the articles are written by academics with proper titles, not just “student.”
On humanities academics, I agree with you about professionalism. I deliberately chose a university that appeared to be (still?) heavily biased in favour of traditional empiricist historiography: though it certainly has its pomo addicts, which they thankfully tend to shelve until the third year pre-honours seminars. One lesson I have learnt is that when deciding which courses to take, always follow the very best teachers, no matter what they teach, as they will excite you enough to go off and do your own research. I have been about 85% extremely satisfied with my history lecturers and tutors, which is MUCH higher than I expected when I first started.
I have also worked out that the best way to get all educated and, like, stuff is to deliberately take contrary positions. So I choose essays where the topic addresses a dominant scholarly paradigm and try to argue against it. It forces you to be much more nimble, well-read, and considered than just reproducing the prevailing consensus. It also carries the great risk that if you stuff up, misrepresent, or simply do not understand said dominant paradigm, expect a crucifixion; death by 52/100!
I have only had one experience where I felt I was marked down due to the lecturer’s ideology, but took that as a lesson to be even more considered next time. OTOH, there was another tutor who had a very “strong leaning” towards contemporary “gender” stuff, which i do not. I think there were times when she was close to punching me and/or calling HREOC.
But she was the one who gave me 94 for the Vietnam essay (minus five for excessive length) and 9/10 for tutes. OTOH, I know other universities where the academics are much more ideological, and conform much closer to the current stereotype of pomo culture warrior leftist indoctrinator.
Paul Burns, I read your comment and I shook. And my eyes ran. I shook so much they thought the horse flu had come back. Poor Boxer.
Is it only humans who do these terrible things to animals? From what I see on the tellie in the stable, they do worse to their own kind. There’s some Bay somewhere, many paddocks away, where screams can be heard. And they are not the screams of passion either!
I think horses have much to offer humans. That why I want to be a writer. To help humans solve their problems. I might win the Nobel Peace Prize and the Booker for bringing rapprochement between humans and the rest of the animal world. Then again I might not. If I set the bar too high I mightn’t be able to jump over it. Besides, I don’t want to be egotistical. That’s a human disease.
P.S. I hope you don’t mind me throwing in a French word. Lecherers are excited by that, a groom told me one day!
jpz
I could not agree with you more about both Aeschylus and Edward Said.
After I wrote the essay mentioned above, the next semester I continued the theme and wrote an essay on the extent to which democratic ideology was “performed” (I know, how VERY Judith Butler of me!
) on the Athenian stage between 450 and 400 BCE.
The Oresteia still takes my breath away! OMG, now I’M sounding like a Luvvie!
The psychological depth, rhythm, language, theological sophistication, and Athena’s resolution of Apollo and the furies at the end of The Eumenides are just so profound as statements of politics and diplomacy in a way that no modern film or play ever has. It is hard to believe this stuff was actually written nearly 2,500 years ago when they had neither electricity nor Neurofen plus.
I have never taken a course on Attic Greek, but started teaching myself during the Aeschylus essay. Fortunately I already knew the alphabet and the various sounds through mathematics.
My interest in the essay was piqued by the scholarship surrounding the word “barbarian” or barbaros the Greek noun. I went to Dymocks and bought a Stage 1 textbook, and by the end could navigate my around the original Greek version of Aeschylus’ Persae (“The Persians”) with sufficient confidence to take on the leading scholars. In fact much of my essay was berating what a philistine and fraud Said was in every single word he has ever written about the ancient world, especially his risible comments on Aeschylus and Euripides. To me, the guy was a pimp and a fraud, whose legacy on the humanities has been disastrous.
I also successfully convicted the world’s leading scholar on representations of the barbarian in Greek literature of ethically-challenged mistranslations to pursue her Saidian agenda. To do this, I had to become familiar with all the Greeks words and ideas surrounding ’softness,’ ‘femininity,’ ‘luxury,’ ‘eastern,’ etc. Then I got stuck into French structuralists and deconstructionists.
Next year, I am going to start formal university study in Greek. It is amazing to learn. There is barely a philosophical, legal, ethical, theological concept that we all use today that does not come from this language.
“Is it only humans who do these terrible things to animals? From what I see on the tellie in the stable, they do worse to their own kind.”
Pyzo, they are truly horrible to each other. You will not be surprised to know that in a recent report on their childrens’ greatest fears, along with monsters spiders etc, the car, was high on the list.
For good reason. It is the greatest human child killer on the planet. How is that for almost instant karma?
Joe, I hope you don’t mind me asking, me being a horse and all. I saw a documentary once on CNN. The stable hands didn’t realize. It was about how many human children died from starvation each year. And lots seem to die in wars too. And some humans kill their own children as well.
Are the documentary ones less than those killed by cars?
JG,
Wish you well in your studies.
Despite the idiocy of the History Wars, (which were mostly waged by non-academics or people utterly untrained in the rigours of the discipline) i’ve always found professional historians pretty non-ideological in their approach, whatever their personal political beliefs. I think this is because we are to a great extent circumscribed by the evidence on which we base our interpretative narrative.This has even been the case in gender history, and really concepts like gender, class, race (the most contentious ones apparently) are just organising tools for a piece of writing, the same way scononomic, social, political, legal,etc. historical perspectives are. I can’t see what the fuss is about. If they’re useful to understanding or clarifying your argument, use them, if not relevant, to put them in is self-evidently extraneous.
pyzo,
Wasn’t me who quoted Animal Farm, though it was a powerful piece of writing.
Back to Vanity Fair. There’s a fantastic early technicolour version called ‘Becky Sharp’ by the great Rouben Mamoulian.
As to Pearson, his taste is okay, but he’s so pompous, he’d put any kid off these works. I wonder if he’d deign to listen to his neices’ and nephews’ recommendations. I doubt it.
Enemy Combatant, I’ve been such a silly Skewbald. Please forgive me. I love Orwell and I was so moved by the passage you quoted I mustn’t have been concentrating.
His best was 1984 which some countries in the world are trying their hardest to recreate. America for example.
Sometimes I’m glad I’m a horse. We’re bigger than humans and stronger than them and can run faster than them. And looking at the mess they’ve made of the world, we’re obviously smarter than them too!
Pyzo, I did not mind you asking. To do that would be horsist. But I would advise you to be skeptical of anything on CNN. In answer to your question, the ones in the documentary are less than those killed by cars.
See the link below and consider also how many children are killed in wars to secure petrol to keep cars going.
Also, would your species be happy to again provide engine capacity for passenger humans as we might need to start walking very soon?
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/19/news/UN-GEN-UN-Car-Crashes.php
Joe, could it be that we horses are going to have our revenge on humans for making us into glue? And thanks for your tip on CNN. A horse has to watch where he gets his information from or next I’ll be accused of having blinkers on!
Of course horses are not filled with hate like humans nor do we seek revenge. And we are far more loyal. You ask will we pick up where we left off when we were unceremoniously pushed aside by the noisy, polluting motor car? I cannot answer for all horses of course but I suspect we will.
Hopefully it will be more a partnership next time, one based upon respect.
“What’s the protocol? Do I just ring up or email the editor of ten journals I think are relevant? JSTOR is a great place for a quick list, but is it the best you know of? Do the editors work with you in polishing the article, or is expected to be ready to go the first time they read it?”
Protocols are different for different journals, and you can get a sense of process and expectations by looking at submission guidelines on the web pages of journals you respect. Read recent issues to get a sense of the style and if your work is a ‘fit’. Come up with a short-list of 3-4 for each piece. Meanjin would be good for pieces that address Australian material, has hosted some good scholarly work, and is good for interdisciplinary work with a literary component. It may suit some of the pieces you listed.
I recommend finding a sympathetic academic working in the area you are trying to publish in. If a lecturer has given you a very high mark, then they might be a good place to start. They can give you the inside info on which journals have slow turn over, good feedback and so forth, and might be able to look at your work and tell you exactly where to send it. If you don’t get good info this way, then email a 200-300 word abstract to editors of some of the journals on your shortlist and ask if they would be interested in your material. This can also help you to get a sense of how quickly things happen at each of those journals.
Once you’ve gotten word, submit according to the guidelines to one journal only for each piece – submitting the same piece at the same time to separate journals is generally not seen as good form. You may get knocked back, but you should get readers reports or other feedback which will outline the problems with the piece. If you’re accepted, you’ll still need to work on the piece to answer the readers suggestions and criticisms. After that there may be a little more to and fro with the editors over word-length and minor changes. I’ve had the whole process take 18 months for a major journal, but I’ve also had it take less than 6 months.
As for presumption, well, some major journals do not publish students at all, so they agree it is presumptuous. I happen to think this is a bad thing, but I can see why some major internationals want to discourage large numbers of low-quality submissions, and this is an imperfect way of achieving that.
In my experience, there is nothing quite like going down to the periodicals section of your uni library and browsing the subject area to get some ideas about a good home for your piece. I have no systematic way of finding suitable journals, but using journal databases through the uni library in the process of doing research can turn up interesting journals.
pyzo wrote:
Written like someone who’s only seen horses in picture books. They’re smart, have long memories and definitely don’t mind a bit of revenge if they can get away with it. Try riding an oft abused horse near a low hanging branch for starters. The really clever horses can sidle up to a tree and scrape your leg on it. They’ll stumble in odd spots, dropping you like a bag of spuds. They’ll bite you. They’ll kick you. They have good memory for faces. Some horses seem like bundles of hate waiting for an opportunity.
Mr Klaus, are you Santa? You’re so kind.
It seems that getting something published is a nightmare (although I’ve had a few nightmares in my time and had no complaint). If it’s this hard for intelligent and talented humans like your friend then what chance do I, a Skewbald have?
Cause,Klaus, please don’t think I’m being presumptuous, but there are a lot of commercial magazines and newspapers your friend could apply to. They usually pay much better though the article might have to be adjusted so that normal humans can read it.
David, your experience with horses suggests that you have a poor attitude towards them. Many humans have this problem and its not only with horses either. Of course, what humans do to each other makes horseplay a Sunday School picnic by comparison.
I’m sure if you changed your attitude and thought of horses as being your equal things would change dramatically for you. Try an apple. You might even get a horse kiss!
Pyzo,
You talk so affectionately about your species and the alleged wrongs of your superior species. But, you gloss over the outrages that you and your colleagues perpetrate on peace loving humans every day.
Peace-loving humans, Growler? I’ve never met any.
I assume from your name that you’re a dog. Listen, don’t rain on my parade, you pretentious pooch unless being trampled is high on your agenda!
Pyzo,
Growlers are actually highly intelligent. They can smell out pretentious cretins with the click of an obedient mouse.
Check out this pdf on how pirates organise themselves.
http://www.peterleeson.com/An-arrgh-chy.pdf
Economists are nuts. Pirates aren’t able to be extrapolated into any general proposition about self-organisation because they are pirates on a ship with a common purpose and avoiding the state!
Also, it doesn’t mention where the wooden legs and eyepatches came from…
According to one of the main authorities on pirates, Marcus Rediker,a Marxist historian (I think), in Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,
their ’social order, articulated in the organisation of the pirate ship, was conceived and deliberately constructed by the pirates themselves.Its hallmark was a rough, improvised, but effective egalitarianism that placed authority in thecollective hands of the crew. …egalitarianism was institutionalized aboard the pirate ship.’
etc, etc. His basic argument is that pirates were the first more or less organised democracy, all decision, bar decisions about warfare,which were the prerogativer of the captain, being decided by the crew. Everybody got an equal share of the plunder. They were the first true lefties.
“Everybody got an equal share of the plunder. They were the first true lefties.”
Well there you have it, rather concisely put. The leftist perspective is, at bottom, founded upon the notion of plunder. Couldn’t have said it better myself!
John Greenfield — The work you’re doing sounds really interesting. I wish you all the best with it.
…and, with that…
MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!
and a happy and prosperous New Year to you all…
cheers,
j_p_z
Huh, guess that didn’t work before. Anyway…
MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!
and best wishes to all for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year! cheers!
Growler, I apologize. I made a mistake, O.K. I can tell from your dismissive comment that you’re a human. That’s fine. I understand. All animals are used to being looked down upon by humans.
And you’re highly intelligent as well I see. Gee. Did you invent the A-Bomb or discover cigarettes? Humans are just so clever. Horses would never think of things like that.
Too clever for their own good, my mother used to say. Look at their fucked-up world, she’d say.
I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, Growler!
j-p-z [65]:
Same to you with brass knobs on..
Go easy shovelling snow this winter. Snow? Yeah, you know, that white fluffy stuff thst sticks to the soles of your shoes and makes them slippery; you remember it, don’t you?
And remember, since the days of Ted Steele at Woollongong U, it doesn’t matter if you plagiarise your Masters arse off as long as daddy and muummie pay the fees. No wucken furries, you’re a winner everytime!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/24/2126410.htm
World’s best practise plagiarists-R-Us. University customers are getting the piece of paper they pay for.
Sorta like those academic indulgences they sold in the middle ages, prior to the enlightenment.
Mr Combatant, my ears pricked up when I read your comment about ‘getting the piece of paper they pay for’. Does this mean that I too can buy a degree or do they only sell them to rich humans!
Also Wucken Furries? Are they rabbits?
Pyzo, why would you bother buying a degree when monopoly money will get you the piece of paper you desire?
Mr Steve, there’s much that I have to learn about the human world so I hope you’ll be tolerant of my questions but what’s monopoly money? Isn’t that what dentists and lawyers earn?
Kim, I think that the eyepatches and wooden legs come from a children’s story book.
http://www.candlelightstories.com/Pirates/PiratesStevenson.php
This “global warming” racket has to be the biggest embarrassment for the left since the fall of the Soviet Union. One wonders when they’ll all start abandoning ship on this one. They have proved adept at denying former mistakes though. To this day downplaying the millions of kids killed by their anti-DDT environmental policies.
Here are 400 people who actually understand the science condemning these climate science lies. There is no longer any doubt about this matter as it pertains to the science. The left have lost and made utter fools of themselves again.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport
So a Minority Report from the GOP meaning Republican side of the Senate is supposed to carry some sort of weight. They are just saying what they have always said. I don’t see how anybody can get excited about a minority of rightwingers from a minority senate position thinking what they always thought.
Well in the face of you guys having no evidence whatsoever 400 scientists saying its a fraud amounts to something I would have thought.
The rest of us are just going to have to keep asking you Malthusian/Marxist types for evidence or you are all going to have to admit you were wrong and unscientific.
What was the justification for this assholery in the first place? A bit of armchair thinking and thats it.
Tell us about it when you have a majority report from the US senate at least then you might have something meaningful too contribute.
Paul Burns, I read your comment and I shook. And my eyes ran. I shook so much they thought the horse flu had come back. Poor Boxer.
Is it only humans who do these terrible things to animals?
This christmas, give a cool present, with added cruelty.
And before everyone starts pointing out that worse things go on in the meat industry: yes, but there’s something a little different, a little chilling, a new twist on consumerist indifference here.
How could anyone bear to own such a thing?
Pyzo, this thread is in need of a bit more horse sense. You have not been lured by a big bag of carrots for instance?
Steve you are being an idiot. You have no evidence whatsoever. And you have the testimony of all sorts of qualified scientists. The Oregon report had the signatures of an immense amount of scientists.
So both the science and the scientists are one side of this argument. And there you are with no evidence at all.
That’s not you Bird, is it?
Just a suggestion folks – don’t feed, etc.
Have you got any evidence Mark?
I’ve got lots of present buying still to do, and trading hours are only til 6pm tonight, so see ya…
So here we have 400 signed comments by qualified scientists. And in the two Oregon petitions we had thousands of signatures. As well we had insurmountable scientific evidence that there was nothing wrong with industrial-CO2-emissions.
There is no evidence on the other side. And nothing to compare in terms of qualified scientists ready to put themselves on the record in this way.
We are just going to have to keep on asking for evidence until we can shame the fraudsters into admitting they are wrong.
Even horses aren’t that dumb, Joe! Bet that Mr Chodorov is a flat-earther too! And I’ll bet that some God (one of them) is big in his life as well.
My stables are looking better all the time!
No I’m not a flat-earther. But the models that this racket is based on are flat earth models.
So you don’t have any evidence do you pyzo. Nor does Mark and he tried to close any talk of evidence down. Nor does Steve who thinks he knows better than all these scientists despite having no evidence of his own.
Paul Burns
It is because of the History Wars stuff that I tend to steer away from twentieth century courses, and I doubt I would ever do an Australian history course, where the Wars are rife. Too boring, for mine.
Mr Chodorov, billions of people believe in a God despite the fact that there is not the slightest shred of evidence to support such a ridiculous proposition.
Yet pictures of receding ice sheets and melting glaciers are dismissed as fiction.
You humans are sure hard to work out. Perhaps you need a Human Whisperer!
Pictures of receding ice are not dismissed as fiction. The ice was receding prior to the industrial revolution as we were coming out of the little ice age and the rate of change has not picked up at all. I myself am not a believer so I don’t quite get your point.
My point is that you have no evidence to be giving industrial carbon dioxide such great credit for these matters. Nor does anyone have any evidence for spending even one dollar restricting the output of this beneficial trace gas. Think about the grass you allegedly eat? It grows more the higher the CO2 levels are?
Come up with some evidence for God while you are at it. If this weren’t a science fraud, already we But it is a science fraud so we won’t be getting that evidence any time soon.
Mr Chodorov, sorry to disappoint you but horses don’t believe in theological constructs! Only humans are capable of nonsense like that. And only humans are happy to kill other humans who believe in different theological fairytales.
And let me tell you that, until this recent spell of rain, we animals have been doing it really tough for a number of years. The trees too.
Then we don’t live in concrete, pyneboard and plastic environments. We live in the real world!
I try and dust off the canon for the amusement and edification of the young and get accused of being a cricket tragic !! or child molester ?
You’re an idiot pyzo. But congratulations at being able to obsessively continue posting and nowhere so much as thinking of coming up with any evidence.
Were this not a science fraud you and others would not be behaving in this way.
Christopher Pearson,
I rather like your taste in literature, though we’d probably argue for hours over which Dickens novels were best.While I don’t agree with your politics I am appreciative you made the effort.
JG,
I graduated with an MA in Australian history and I never got caught up in any history wars. Don’t believe everything Windshuttle claims. The man is quite ungualified to talk about history on any level. Have a look at the recent book by McIntyre on the History Wars and you’ll quickly realize the wars weren’t waged by historians, but by ignorant right wing cultural elites who wouldn’t recognise a piece of historical evidence if you gave it to them to wipe their bums with it. Historians were only involved insofar as they thought it necessary to refute the grave errors of such populist nonsense.
No you are being ridiculous Paul. Windschuttle is a very thourough historian and most eminently qualified.
F. Chodorov, we’re not obliged to provide you with evidence just because you feel like demanding some, and in fact we’re not obliged in the least to talk about what you want us to talk about. However, please note that the comments policy precludes vexatious and purely abusive swipes at other commenters, which is what I take your constant claims that others are “idiots” to be. So, please don’t do that. And have a happy and safe Christmas!
http://larvatusprodeo.net/about-larvatus-prodeo/comments-policy/
Mr Mark, I’ve been called much worse than an idiot by a whole variety of humans, especially when I run last at the track. And I’ve even been beaten with leather straps.
Regardless I do appreciate that you stood up for me and I will try my best to understand the world of humans even if I find it hard to make sense of.
I may yet reach a plateau of equinimity!
“I try and dust off the canon for the amusement and edification of the young and get accused of being a cricket tragic !! or child molester ?”
Are you sure you are not plucking a few things from the air, there, Christopher?
We have seen a lot of that over the past year and it is almost over. Enjoy your christmas celebrations and I am sure some will be drawn to your musical and reading suggestions.
It’s a pleasure, pyzo, and I hope your quest to understand the world of humans is more successful than that of most humans!
Chodorov,
I don’t know why I bother, but here goes.
1. So far as I am aware,Windshuttle was trained as a sociologist. He had minimal or no formal training in history as an underrgraduate.On this particular point I am willing to stand corrected.
2. He ignores evidence that doesn’t suit his argument – he doesn’t try to counter it, he just ignores it.
3. He continually argues his history ad hominem – that is about the personality of fellow historians, instead of their arguments. Let me tell you that is an absolute no-no.
3.He is considerably less than thorough in his archival research as an historian.
4. No genuine historian in the field of Aboriginal Studies/Australian History, whether academic, popular, Aboriginal, left or right takes him seriously.
Fairfax has just moved its editorial offices to its state-of-the-fart offices in Pyrmont. Under the stately dome they decreed a big mural: 21st century Australia, wheels of industry, faces of the movers and shakers, ah, like the most switched on and relevant evva! On moving in, the hacks find: 1. the mobile phones do not work inside the building; 2. Emails? No emails. Everyone has to get a hotmail account; 3. One of the faces among captains of industry is none other than Rupie! Out comes the mural, sack the artist. (Shades of Diego Rivera). Now that’s put me into a fine Xmas mood to go celebrate the birth (in April 5 in actual fact) of Yeshua, a rabbinical teacher of yesteryear.
All the best to the bloggers and blogettes. Be kind to each other.
Let the record show that Mark had no evidence.
Iggy, even Warwick Fairfax could have done a better job of moving than that. Who’s the genius responsible for the jailbird logistics? And who has been assigned the task of air-brushing Citizen Rupert?
We are reasonable people, Ignatius, aside from being keen media watchers and we have been led to believe that you too, are a reasonable man. Answers to Mysteries of the Fourth Estate like these are high on our need-to-know totem poles.
j-p-z:
Sorry about my flippant remark yesterday concerning snow. Have just heard about the terrible blizzards – even in Texas.
Dingo lovers fight back against antiwhalers on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8lvep0-Ii0
Burns. 1 & 4 are irrelevant and 2 and 3 are wrong.
F. Chodorov,
Ever hear of peer review? When it comes to histoty, I can’t be bothered debating the lack of value of a writer like Windschuttle.
You did debate it and you got it wrong. Windschuttle is one of our best historians. Whats good about him is precisely his seriousness when it comes to archival research. He blew the lid on the profession by catching his colleagues out when it came to them misusing the data. You merely did a switcheroo and blamed him for the problems of his colleagues. You said in effect “It wasn’t the people who Windschuttle caught out it was Windschuttle.”
Windschuttle’s basic position is a contradictory one: he is supposed to be an empiricist, but he refuses to let the material or the context he is addressing in any way influence the philosophical framework for that empiricism, instead locating narrow facts to answer narrow questions within a rationalist world-view that is constitutionally unchangeable. The other problem with Windschuttle’s historiography is what could be called the ‘forest for the trees’ problem: this relates again to the narrowness of the questions he poses, but also to the absence of any interest in the larger part of the phenomena he is supposed to be addressing. Instead he focuses on politically charged either/or propositions. This is a fault of some on the ‘left’ also, in my opinion.
F. Chodorov,
If you want to inform yourself on this topic, I suggest you read Stewart McIntyre’s The History Wars, which I understand either equalled or outsold Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History.
Worst movie of the year: Coen brothers’ No Place for Old Men. Saw it today at inner-west Leichhardt. It was greeted with load groans and cussing at the end and not even from me and people demanding their money back. In short: nasty, vacuous, nihilistic, derivative and boring as sludge.
“It was greeted with load groans and cussing at the end and not even from me and people demanding their money back. In short: nasty, vacuous, nihilistic, derivative and boring as sludge.”
Holy Cow, Wolfe, must be art imitating life. I’d just read this before reading your review. You could have been describing the Liberal led Brisbane City Council.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_Newman
Steve, there are few things more deadly dull than Council politics but trust me, it’s an arena of enacted human passion, sacred and profane, situated in an arbitrary and limited geographical place, that’s infinitely more layered, instructive and entertaining than the monocultural world (and worldview) of this dead dog of a film.
Poor, poor fella, the USA, and its “free” artistes of eminence.
Listen, Mr Wolfe, though it was not of my choosing, the sperm which catapulted me into equine life came from America! Please show some respect for others.
Now I hate George Bush as much as the next human but genetics is genetics. ‘Poor, poor fella, the USA,’ nothing. I will not beat around the Bush or have the country that I hate but which gave me life dismissed so…so…summarily!
Besides, most of the movies which come out of the USA are crap anyway!
Paul Burns
Actually, I never mentioned Windschuttle, and he does not teach at my university, nor any university for that matter. So I don’t know why you would think he would be behind my aversion to taking Australian History courses.
JG,
You’ve totally misunderstood me. Windschuttle was used as an example of those suggesting (quite wrongly) the invasion of political correctnness in Aust. history because of his very public stance on the matter in the media. Nothing to do with the uni you are at, and in any case I was talking of unis in general terms.Pls. forgive the confusion. My statement was not meant to have particular application, but was a generality.
{Besides, most of the movies which come out of the USA are crap anyway!}
Pyzo, I bet stable TV is the same ol’, same ol’ crapola too!
This is what happens when Foxes do the programming. The shifty bastards have figured out a way to keep work-horses paying to watch the commercials as well as the detritus they call “product” and dish on a daily basis.
I once had a beer with a scorpion whose brother eliminated a Fox back in the 20th century when they were both trapped by rising floodwaters. The scorp knew he was a gonner but he took out the fox as a parting gesture to lovers of quality cinema.
It does amuse me to see humans watching commercials, Mr Combatant. I think that sometimes they think that the commercials are the main entertainment. The grooms never talk during the advertisements. It’s serious stuff to them.
I saw on tellie today the stampede into the stores, programmed fillies, stallions, foals, all brandishing credit cards. They were like crazed ants on a hot day!
That you had a beer with a scorpion shows your true magnanimity. I’ve never smoked pot!
“I’ve never smoked pot!”
Umm,you probably have had the resin on your carrots a few times but.
Barbara Bennett the head kicking proworkchoices star of the Howard Government IR ads is set to lead the new Governments IR Department if you can believe the Australian these days. It does sound a bit dodgy though.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22974795-601,00.html
I woildn’t put it past the Rudd Government to keep Bennett on. They have been most unsatisfactory in the way they have dealt with the roll-back of Worchoices.
On the other hand, the piece in the Australian does read like a classic piece of right-wing mischief making. (Or left wing, for that matter.)
Paul Burns
Keith Windschuttle actually has a 1st Class Honours degree in History from the University of Sydney. He also has an MA (by Research) for a 100,000 word thesis on Australian Labour history, which was the basis for his highly acclaimed book, Unemployment.
He is also the author of the best book on historiography ever written by an Australian: The Killing of History, first published in 1994 has old over 50,000 copies outside Australia and is on the syllabus for advanced undergraduate and post-graduate university History courses right across the world.
Unilke anybody else on this thread, and most of the anti-Winschuttle bloviaters who litter The Luvviesphere, I have actually read Unemployment, The Killing of History and The Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Volume 1
He knows his shit.
Even a good historian can write bad history on occasion.
There is already plenty of discussion about Windschuttle’s manifold failings in his Falsification.
His methodology for counting the number of Aborigines killed by white settlers, for example, is utterly unrealistic.
As this figure lies at the centre of his entire thesis — that hardly any Aborigines were killed by whites — his whole argument lacks a backbone.
So instead praising or criticising Windschuttle on the basis of his supposed disposition to write good history it would be more useful to test his skills on a case-by-case basis.
And on the central case of his most notorious book, Windschuttle comes up very short indeed.
Whoops! that should be Fabrication.
I horse which goes to the movies? It’s a long time since cinemas had stalls.
But enough of this tired joke. Time to put it out to pasture pyzo.
I have also read ‘The Killing of History’ and am now wondering whether we could possibly have been reading the same book, John Greenfield. It does, however, explain some of your stated opinions on a number of C20th philosophers. Windschuttle is a light-weight: his willful misreading in that book is about as far from intellectually rigorous as one could be and still maintain the facade of actually doing historiography.
Precisely my point, Katz. J.G.,I have, incidentally, read Unemployment and the Fabrication of Aboriginal History. My comments apply only to the latter book.I really enjoyed Unemployment, but that was published a long time ago, before he was associated with the cultural warriors emanating out of Quadrant. I couldn’t believe the same man wrote both books.I was quite dumbfounded.
As I said earlier, I was willing to stand corrected on his qualifications.
Katz
OK, we can debate the merits of Fabrication as a separate issue. My post was intended merely to respond to Paul Burns, who admittedly said
So far as I am aware,Windshuttle was trained as a sociologist. He had minimal or no formal training in history as an underrgraduate.On this particular point I am willing to stand corrected.
I am much more a fan of his Killing of History than I am Fabrication. OTOH, we should remember that W did not write F as a piece of original “disinterested” research. It was realy a (very) extended review of the historiography on eraly colonial frontier conflicts. Its merits were more as a book about – I agree with him, it was indeed an expose – the state of scholarship among Australian university-situated historians.
I am not the greatest fan of the somewhat weak alternative histories W has thus far suggested, but I think he has been a godsend in rescuing empiricism from the contempt the ruling orthodox Australian historians had tainted this particular methodology.
For work that is more straight “history” than historiography, there are a million historians I would read before W. Perhaps my favourite Australian historian is Inga Clendinnen, for example.
I thought the only kind of history there was was empirical history.The only negative comment on had on my book on the Brisbane Line (apart from a literature scholar who thought I was too hard on the ALP) was from a far-left historian who criticised me for being too empirical.I don’t think I’d be far wrong in sdaying that all the historians I was taught by, and all the historians I know, approach history empirically, whatever their ideology, and regardless of whether their specialty in Australian history is military, diplomatic,political, colonial,20th century, Aboriginal or womens’ history. And I was fortunate to be taught or supervised by some of the very best. I’m not going to get into name-dropping.
Paul
Have you had a history book published? Congratulations! Are you an academic? Do you mind sharing us the book’s title/
Windschuttle did demonstrate the utter falsehood of any arguments that assert that a policy of genocide motivated colonial administrations in Australia pre-1850.
This assertion of a policy of genocide was sneaking into some accounts of Black/White relations.
Windschuttle deserves some credit for blowing a whistle and putting a stop to that lazy and sensationalist tendency.
Perhaps W’s purpose was to write an expose. I can’t fault that as an ambition. I get the sense, however, that W has sucked so much of the oxygen out of the subject of Black/White relations, I am at something of a loss to know how he would write something positive (as in stating a truth as opposed to tearing into an untruth) on the topic.
When he cannot concede that white settlement involved the violent dispossession of Aborigines he demonstrates a lack of the kind of empathy without which the writing of history is impossible.
Katz
I broadly agree with you, except for your final sentence which is a direct parroting of Robert Manne, which I PRAY, you have done unwittingly. Like a lot of those historians W criticises, Manne continued to move the goal-posts of his tawdry and tragically unsuccessful attempt to dicredit W. The last time I checked, Manne had moved onto the “pitiless” argument. While I agree that empathy, etc. are crucial for POLITICAL resolutions to current social problems, I am not at all persuaded that “empathy” is even remotely required for first class historiography.
This gets far too close to Edward Said’s not-so-subtle demands that only the victims can right their own history, etc. OTOH, I do agree with the truism, “it is easier to attract bees with honey.”
But when all is said and done, you will not find me going into bat, for the alternative interpretations W has provided thus far. OTOH, I do not reject them out of hand, either.
Oh gawd, now I am REALLY saying like an undergraduate who wants to be so balanced lest he pisses off whoever is grading his paper.
GregM and CK, how sad that you left your imagination back in your childhood and became…well…er, dull and predictable.
Like much of the human race, you love novelty but tire of it quickly. That’s why materialism thrives. Let’s buy the next gizmo and gimmick, then the next…
The result is the wonderful human achievement of the throwaway society: cars, people, spouses, kids, pets, etc.
Pyzo will continue to embrace and use his imagination for the good of both horses and humans. If you don’t like my contributions, well, don’t read them!
But I will still pay you the courtesy of reading yours.
There are few governments who would openly frame their policies as ‘genocide’, so it seems to be beside the point to speak of a ‘policy of genocide’, and especially in the case of British colonialism which was rhetorically framed along very different lines.
All rhetoric aside, I would argue that a logic of elimination tends to emerge as an element of settler-colonialism because said colonialism is interested in appropriating land at the expense of indigenous peoples. That is, Aboriginal people find themselves between the land and the settlers, and one way or another it is in the interests of settlers to remove them.
But in the case of British settlement in Australia, there was a logic of removal pre-1850 without necessarily a logic of elimination.
To assert a logic of elimination pre-1850 flies in the face of at least two salient facts:
a. The British government refused to allow colonial elites control of land policy. Whitehall was all to aware of what squatters would do with that control.
b. Pastoral leases conferred very few rights to leaseholders. Native title was recognised.
(As a matter of record, let me state that genocidal policies came to the fore in the latter part of the 19th century, especially after 1880, with the vogue of scientific racism inspired by Darwinism. (It is not coincidental that one of Australia’s capital cities is named Darwin, just as it isn’t coincidental that Saigon’s name changed to Ho Chi Minh City.)
______________
Empathy is essential to understand how anyone else understands their own frame of reference.
Empathy ≠sympathy. Good generals use empathy to understand their enemy in order to destroy them.
Katz,
aul Burns, The Brisbane Line Controversy: Political Opportunism versus National Security, 1942-1945, Allen and Unwin, 1998.
Do agree with you on the genocide thing.
JG,
The book is
It is out of print, having sold out. It is available in public and university libraries. The last time I looked, if you Google Paul Burns + Brisbane Line [Australia] and follow the links you might be able to get it over the internet through Military histotry bookshops. (You’ll also come across the left wing reviewer who didn’t like it. Long story there, that I’m not going to get into.)I’m an independent historian, currently researching a book on participation of First and Second Fleeters’ participation in the American Revolution. Have completed a first draft of a short book on the First Fleet at Botany Bay,which a very esteemed colleague of mine thinks I should submit eventually, but it needs a hell of a lot of work yet. Its not a mess, but the through line is very confused and its going to take quite a bit of rewriting to fix it up.I also do on-line book reviews for the Menzies Institute of Australian Studies, King’s College, London University.Mostly Aboriginal Studies and Military History.Again if you go to their web page and follow the links, you’ll come across the reviews at NLA.
Re empathy. Have you read R. G. Collingwood’s The Idea of History,you might find what he says on the historical imagination intriguing.
Katz
Empathy ≠sympathy. Good generals use empathy to understand their enemy in order to destroy them.
While your first point is obvious, your raising it has a delicious irony in support of my rejection of the demands for ‘empathy;’ which we will see in a tic. Your second point does not help your case, as it frames an historian and her (overwhelmingly dead) subject/s in a violent war-like relationship.
There are a million problems with this insistence on “empathy.”
One is it lends itself far too easy to critics of this or that historian (in this case Robert Manne, for example) to instrumentalise the requirement for “empathy” as a strategy to dismiss an historian not only tout court but ab initio. The game thus becomes to shepherd the opposing historian’s argument outside some arbitary bounds of “empathy”, whereupon the critic can declare, Gotcha!
The delicious irony I promised comes from a debate staged in Paris among Israeli and Palestinian historians. The main stars were Edward Said, Ilan Pappe, and Benny Morris. Benny Morris is the most renowned for his familiarity with Israeli state and military records. he is an empiricist in KW mould, with the exception he was also the historian most responsible for first bringing formal concrete documentary evidence of the events of 1947 to 1949, and the Israeli’s bahviour during that time, that rejected the existing Zionist romantic orthodoxy. To wit, his Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem revolutionised the historiography of the birth of the conflict, and decidely not in Israel’s favour! In the subsequent years, as more documents have come to light, not only from the Israelis, but the British, the UN, Amwericans, Soviets, Jordan, Egypt, Palestinians, etc. Morris’s position – like all historians has become more nuanced, as his POLITICAL position about the CURRENT (ie. 1998, when the debate was held) conflict has distanced himself from his former gard-leftist anti-Zionist brethren, like the pomo Commie Ilan Pappe.
Edward Said tried exactly the strategy I describe, when he declared – immediately after Morris had spoken:
“One wonders about historians who write about the tragedy of another people without any empathy for that tragedy. Can we really then say that their books, like Morris’s book about the birth of the refugee problem, are not flawed, just by fact that they have been written by someone who had no sympathy for the tragedy or catastrophe about which they were writing.
The irony, as you can see is his conflation of empathy and sympathy.
And again, we see the whole Gotcha process of which the ad hominem addicted Said was renowned.
There were at least two dog-whistles here. Firstly, IDF and Israeli government documents would void ab initio as acceptable historical evidence because – ‘naturally’ – the fact they were written by Jews involved in a conflictual relationship with the Palestinians negates even an iota of “empathy” in those who created the documents. The second dog-whistle was that only those Israelis – like Ilan Pappe, who had publicly thrown themselves on the ethical/legal/moral pyrre of any notion of Israeli legitimacy, could be considered sufficiently “empathetic” to have their historiography considered legitimate.
The second problem – which I particularly delight in – is one that hoists the postmodernists on their own petard, as it acknowledges a very real and natural interaction between subject historian and object between studied, a subject positioning whose denial and impossibility are, otherwise, the foundations of postmodernist historiography!
Paul Burns
I just had a quick squiz at the review you mentioned. What a prat! His critcism of your not being “empirical” had nothing to do with evidence. What he spent the whole article arguing is that you were not being theoretically classically Maxist ENOUGH!
Ironically, his own extremely lengthy review showed not even the slightest awareness of the developments in Marxist historiography over the past twenty years. I think you can confidently file his review in the “Get Stuffed clown” drawer!
I think that historically the British government of Australia serves to mediate that logic, and to reduce its impact, but the late emergence of policy signals only a successful deferral. Also, a logic of elimination is not the same thing as a genocidal policy: what I am talking about is a cultural logic tied up with material interests. There are other logics at work in the same context, of course, influencing policy. The great irony is that the government that facilitated this colonisation was also a force working against and mediating some of it’s constitutive aspects.
JG,
It was a bit like water off a duck’s back. He was criticising me for something the book was not doing.And I did treat him quite dismissively in my book, so I suppose I deserved it in a way.Thanks anyway.
This is unarguable.
The “law” of unintended consequence plays a huge part in all human affairs. But its effects are especially poignant in the context of contact between resilient cultures and fragile cultures.
_______________
Edward Said misuses the word “empathy”.
You’ve over-analysed Robert Manne.
Some Radio History,
HEre is an excerpt from the 2SM New Bulletin from the the day after Gough won the Election, as posted on Radio Historian, Wayne Mac’s site in tribute to legendary Sydney Newsreader, Jim Angel, who died suddenly on Xmas Eve. Note the comments by Don Chipp on why the LIbs lost.
http://www.waynemac.com/audio/2SM%20News_1972.mp3
Sheesh, howsabout that Pakistan? Y’all heard about the Bhutto assassination?
In other news, I missed out on getting eaten by a tiger by a mere 20-something hours. I didn’t visit the big cats exhibit, as it invariably depresses me even when done reasonably well (cf Perth Zoo), but if the SF zoo treats their tigers anything like their birds of prey (tethered to perches ON A PATCH OF FUCKING LAWN WITH THE OPEN SKY ABOVE!!!) then Tatiana has my lasting sympathy.
Bhutto had to know the peril she exposed herself to by politicking in the way she did.
She was the biggest target in the world in one of the most ungovernably violent countries on earth.
If, as seems likely, she submitted herself to that level of peril knowingly, what was she trying to achieve?
Did she believe that her death made the achievement of that ambition more likely?
Just curious. But I think this is the first time since I’ve been visiting LP that Saturday Salon has run the whole week. Is this just the holidays or have people been extra chatty?
Can anyone help me out me out on Microsoft Word technology? How do you insert footnotes, such that the text of every single one will start at precisely the same indentation. I press “Insert Footnote” and the cursor jumps to that the bottom of that page and iserts numbers 1,2,3……, but then leaves it up to me to decide where to start typing. As a resul,t at the end of the paper, while all the footnote NUMBERS are perfectly aligned, the notes themselves are not.
JG,
Use the spacer bar? A peculiar problem. I’ve never experienced it. I think if the footnote is more than a line long the second line starts under the number, and if you press how many spaces you want you should be able to align them. But I could be wrong. Quite some time ago I used to be a technophobe. I still can’t program a DVD-Video player to record, and I avoid i-pods and mobile phones like poison.
“I’ve never experienced it.”
And nor should you. He’s doing the wounded dove routine. Creating a mock problem to seek sympathy and attention.
MS Word has a very straightforward footnotes function that anyone not deliberately hobbled by egregious emotional issues should be able to master in the time it takes to have a good long piss. If you visit MS Word forums (Such forums, and always across platforms, are a real marker of what OS needs work), almost no one is whinging about this straightforward function.
Besides, it’s a bit late isn’t it for anyone boasting about writing 7000 word essays to suddenly seek advice from complete strangers about formatting footnotes?
PB
Yes, I have always used the space bar, but I was hoping there was a better way.
Klaus K
I have also read ‘The Killing of History’ and am now wondering whether we could possibly have been reading the same book, John Greenfield. It does, however, explain some of your stated opinions on a number of C20th philosophers.
I never said it was perfect, but it is the best treatise on historiography I have read by any Australian. If you know of better ones, please tell me. But I certainly did/do not get my ultimate understanding of the influence of philosophers on history-writing from KW. Yes, he has provoked a lot of questions, which have motivated me to look deeper, elsewhere. I did one of those pre-honours historiography courses, and my lecturer could not stand KW or indeed liberal empiricism. I wrote a 6,000 word essay comparing and contrasting the respect critiques of “objectivity” by marxist and postmodern/poststructuralist historiography.
Had I merely relied on KW, my lecturer would have failed me in second fllat.
“I wrote a 6,000 word essay comparing and contrasting the respect critiques of “objectivityâ€? by marxist and postmodern/poststructuralist historiography.”
I call bullshit. Post it.
Nabakov- thanks for the comedy relief.Unfortunately you are becoming worse than the problem. Mark pointed this out to another dullard earlier on this thread.
Really start your own blog and invite Greenfield over there so you can both trade insults till you both prove what ever point it is you are pursuing.
Thanks.
Mark wrote “F. Chodorov,( let’s substitute Nabakov) we’re not obliged to provide you with evidence just because you feel like demanding some, and in fact we’re not obliged in the least to talk about what you want us to talk about.
However, please note that the comments policy precludes vexatious and purely abusive swipes at other commenters, which is what I take your constant claims that others are “idiotsâ€?( “Should impress your fellow van drivers.”"Darlene, he’s a complete prick.”"They just stay wankers until they die.”)to be. So, please don’t do that. And have a happy and safe Christmas!
[link]
JG,
No. Space bar is it. I suppose I’m a bit out of date, but what the f**k is postmodern/poststructuralist historiography?
Nabakov,
Strangers on LP? Maybe I’m a bit of a nerd, but I’m starting to consider a lot of you as friends even though I’ve never met you. And I’ve long got past all my emotional problems. Mind you, I am a bit of a hermit, by choice.
Nabakov
The idea that there are creatures out there would could possibly even imagine that another human being make up such a topic and lie that they wrote 6,000 words on it is one that I am sure even the most demonic psychopharmacologist has never contemplated. Please.
Prove me wrong, Post it.
Until such time as you have completed a course with June Dally Watkins you are in no position to think anbody could give a tinker’s cuss about your disbelief towards anything.
“Until such time as you have completed a course with June Dally Watkins you are in no position to think anbody could give a tinker’s cuss about your disbelief towards anything.+
But wouldn’t you love to prove me wrong you tiny little pond rage tadpole? Go on, set up a one-shot blogger site and post your 6000 word essay comparing and contrasting the respect critiques of “objectivityâ€? by marxist and postmodern/poststructuralist historiography.
I’ve done my time in the salt mines of early 80s humanities/sociology studies and that subject matter just doesn’t smell quite right. Too fucking nebulous for a 6000 word essay. Also, as others have pointed out, the word count of the various essays you claim to have written just doesn’t jell with reality.
But hey, go ahead and prove me wrong. It’ll only take 4 minutes of your time at blogger or blogspot. 240 seconds and you can publicly rub my nose in it.
GO!
Nabakov
I mean really. How old are you? Seven? Eight? Can you “please explain” the upisde for me posting to a person on a blog whom – as you so gallantly sneered above – I do not even know?
This is all quite funny to read, guys!
“Can you “please explainâ€? the upisde for me posting to a person on a blog whom – as you so gallantly sneered above – I do not even know?”
Exposing your work to a wider audience? You were fairly keen to solicit suggestions about this before. Why so coy now?
Anyway, I gather that’s a no then. And so we should treat all your proclamations of being a serious writer and thinker as so many more gossamer wisps in the aether?
You sure as shit ain’t doing anything online to suggest otherwise so far.
“This is all quite funny to read, guys!”
I also take requests. Would you like me comment in a burgundy brocade smoking jacket and peacock blue silk cravat while swigging 12 year old Dalhousie and listening to Bauhaus’ “The Telephone is Empty”?
Can do.
Post the photo and you’re $10 richer.
My mother raised me not take money from strange woman who want to play “dress-ups” with an apple-cheeked little lad.
Also $10 is insulting. Make it a century and I’ll put on more clothes – including a smoking cap with a tassel that I can rotate both clockwise and counterclockwise. And for another 50, I’ll smoke a pipe as well. But you’ll have to light it.
“Also $10 is insulting. Make it a century and I’ll put on more clothes..”
.
.
‘More dollars = less clothes’ is the usual convention my dear, unless, of course, you’ve got something to hide
You were fairly keen to solicit suggestions about this before…
I still am; but only from the educated, clever and well-published.
I can do without bovine bottom-feeders and low-rent Luvvie Cultistudiers, who clearly lack the genrosity of spirit to contribute to a blog – even while spitting sophomoric venom behind a a tragically presumptuous nic – let alone display the traits of collegiality and mentorship that characterise not only decent intellects and scholars, but decent human beings.
now, you have yourself a lovely day, now.
“…decent human beings.”
Would you be able to put me in touch with some, Mr Greenfield? Reading some of these comments and knowing something about the chaotic human world more broadly makes me wonder whether they have become extinct but no one noticed.
Oh, and by the way, on re-checking the length of relative critiques of marxist and pomo/structuralists essay, I in fact submitted 9,217 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography). I do apologise for the confusion.
Please note that because so many bloggers here are taking a break til the new year, effectively there is no one moderating this thread at the moment. So you’re all on your honour to behave in accordance with the comments policy!
I’ll be taking stock when I start paying attention again.
A sort of “have you been naughty or nice?” moment, if you will.
John Greenfield, I have not looked at Australian historiography in any great detail, but I think John Docker and Ann Curthoy’s recent ‘Is History Fiction?’ is a good overview of western historiography that frames contemporary debates in an interesting way, and even contributes a little, although is a bit light on detail. Also, Inga Clendinnen’s reflections are generally worthwhile in the sense that they are worth debating and thinking with, although she has nothing book length on the subject. I’ll consult my historian friends on this one.
For myself, I found Paul Carter’s ‘The Road to Botany Bay’ provided a fascinating if idiosyncratic critique of the practice of Australian history which also does a great deal to trouble left-liberal practices of Aboriginal history.
Klaus
I have responded on the new saturday salon thread.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/12/29/saturday-salon-125/