Daniel Silliman

15.3.03

Spring Break
My break has begun--I've just ended an 8 hour take home exam on Medieval Philosophy--and now I plan to sit down, sleep, cook my own food, write and read for ten days. Ahhhh. Now if only we'd have a spring...

by Daniel Silliman @ 2:33 AM. : Comments 0

G.W. and the Church
The Pope, the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs and Anglican Archbishop Williams have come out against the war on Iraq. Indeed most denominations and Christian leaders of all stripes and sizes have condemned it.

In fact, the only Christian religious body to favor the war are the Southern Baptists.

If George Bush is a Christian, and I believe he is, why has he shown no respect or deferenc to the Church in any formulation?

by Daniel Silliman @ 1:02 AM. : Comments 0

14.3.03

Pi
It should be noted that today is pi day, being 3.14. At 1.59 celebrations will begin at the S.F. Exploratorium.

This is also Einstein's birthday. Celebrate accordingly.

Update: Google goes nuts for Einstein.

by Daniel Silliman @ 2:54 PM. : Comments 0

13.3.03

Death and Books
The existential experience of facing mortality while looking at one's bookshelf is one I have all the time and one I wouldn't get rid of. It is an experience I refuse to exchange for some rented canon, to turn in for some "Read all the Great Books--in the Princeton Edition!" experience.

by Daniel Silliman @ 10:07 PM. : Comments 0

Partial Birth Abortion looks like it will be banned before the year is over. Thank God.

by Daniel Silliman @ 10:05 PM. : Comments 0

12.3.03

But he could not touch himself, and he continued to read; and so his mother died while he sat in the chair next to her, reading a fat book.

After that he more or less stopped reading. You could not trust fiction. What good were books, if they couldn't protect you from something like that?

by Daniel Silliman @ 8:30 AM. : Comments 0

11.3.03

In Other Signs of the Apocalypse
National Review Online comes out with two pieces that defend the French--on the same day. They're talking about French movies, but conservative bashing of French cinema is a long tradition. And tradition is what conservatives are all about.

This is amazing in so many ways.

Watch for Jonah Goldberg to implode within two days.

by Daniel Silliman @ 10:19 PM. : Comments 0

10.3.03

Mario Savio, Berkley, Speech, Christopher Hitchens and Me
Christopher Hitchens has written an interesting piece on Berkely and the Free Speach Movement for the Times Literary Supplement.

Mario Savio was held up as a hero, by my father when I was a child. My uncle had some involvement in the protests that followed Savio's demonstration. In my education about modern politics and society, the steps in Berkely that are now named after Savio served as a center. My opposition to all forms of censorship and my current place in journalism probably stem in part from Savio and the FSM.

I share some of Hitchens concerns about the directions these things have taken, though I'm entirely with Hitch on this piece. The continuation of the FSM, in bulk, seems to be a lame or perverted thing, not worthy of the name or the bravery of Savio.

by Daniel Silliman @ 6:02 PM. : Comments 0

9.3.03

The rumors and reports of the Pulitzer winners are out and making the rounds.

I'm not in the running, it seems.

by Daniel Silliman @ 7:51 PM. : Comments 0

Looking for the Uncanonized Canon
Questions of what should and shouldn't be in the required list of reading for the educated are always interesting. Among those attempting a liberal education this is often debated and lists are drawn and disagreed upon.

I find questions of if there should be a canon, a list, even more interesting. The claim that such lists are fascist, at least methodologically, disturbs me. I don't have an immediate response to the charge. It is true that the talk of those listing the works is talk of the pure aesthetic and its connection to the political and religious systems of our world. This talk—seen in the best students and professors—is nearly identical to the talk of Ezra Pound when he talked of ascension of literature to the Cantos and Italian Fascism.

I do not have a firm grasp on the critique, but my response is to argue for the shifting and always unfinished canon. In the end, I’m working for a fluidity that keeps this question from being answered. The finalization and solidification of the list is to claim the end of literature and to claim a utopia—intellectually and thus also in political, religious and economic systems—that I fundamentally object to.

Any canon worth being a canon will perpetually shift and sift. The works considered great will change, growing with extension of research and refining with the number to choose from.

I will not assent to any canon that is fixed in time or number. Any canon worth reference will not claim a permanent fixed state, granting new works be added as time continues.

I’ve argued for a canon, at least the informal one we students have among us, to include the modern and the liberal. Seraphim and I clashed last spring about the inclusion of Jack Kerouac and recently I have decried those who have not read Allen Ginsberg. As a reader of any length knows I am often defending the modern artists (Jackson Pollok, Andres Serrano) and philosophers (e.g. Derrida).

This is subversive with implicit claim that the moderns speak valuably and an undeclared defense of intellectual progress. As the postmodern cartoon, Cat and Girl says, this is just a new canon. It’s not different than the last one except that it has a few modifications. Its still a canon.

Maybe this is a problem.

My tendency is to think we live in the world created by the old work and occupied by the new, thus we ought to fluidly work with and read both.

But considering the contradiction I am asking for—the paradox of a canon not canonized—I can understand the objections and the frustrations.

by Daniel Silliman @ 7:39 PM. : Comments 0

Thinking About the Coming War
Remember the good old days--like back in the 90s when Clinton was president--when to be Conservative meant to distrust government?

by Daniel Silliman @ 1:15 AM. : Comments 0