Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 36, No. 467.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




        Date: 2023-03-20 08:58:46+00:00
        From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 36.462: excitement everywhere all the time, but no Oscar

Brilliant, Jan!

-- Tim

> On 20 Mar 2023, at 06:04, Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
>
>
>              Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 36, No. 462.
>        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
>                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
>                       www.dhhumanist.org
>                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
>        Date: 2023-03-18 05:37:58+00:00
>        From:  <jkrybicki@gmail.com>
>        Subject: RE: [Humanist] 36.460: excitement everywhere all the time, but
no Oscar
>
> I'm truly excited and delighted and thrilled to see that it is not just my
> cynical self foaming at the mouth when I see all those "excited to be giving a
> talk at the conference..." tweets. Excited, really? Man, you're 40, you should
> not be excited anymore whenever you talk at other people for 20 minutes in a
> room with a screen (half of those people are tweeting about something else
> anyway). I wonder if this is not just the same false excitement we see in
> commercials when that laxative really does the job on the acting persons'
> entrails.
>
> I guess it makes sense in very competitive academic climes (you know where).
> It's interesting how hyperbolical the traditionally unemotional Anglo-Saxons
> have become. I don't see a lot of that excitement ("podniecenie" or
> "ekscytacja") in my native Polish in this context; I guess it's because our
> academia is so underpaid that the competitiveness evaporates before it's even
> born. But that is another story.
>
> Cynically, then,
> Jan Rybicki
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
> Sent: 18 March 2023 06:18
> To: jkrybicki@gmail.com
> Subject: [Humanist] 36.460: excitement everywhere all the time, but no Oscar
>
>
>              Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 36, No. 460.
>        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
>                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
>                       www.dhhumanist.org
>                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
>        Date: 2023-03-18 05:14:48+00:00
>        From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
>        Subject: excitement everywhere all the time, but no Oscar
>
> Since I no longer have to mark papers, Lorna Finlayson's offering in the
latest
> London Review of Books, "Everyone Hates Marking", didn't at first look like it
> would strike home with quite the force it once might have. But that judgment
> proved premature. Note her second and third sentences:
>
>> But the university is not the safe space for complaint that it once
>> was. Negativity, even ambivalence, is frowned on. Nothing less than
>> complete enthusiasm will satisfy: you must at all times be thrilled to
>> announce, excited to be part of, delighted to share.
>
> This got to me because of the many announcements I see buzzing with pretended
> excitement, or alternatively so peppered with asterisks as to blank out the
> communication which the author obviously intended to dress in urgency. Under
> such a regime quiet statement shouts far more loudly, or rather, satisfies and
> draws attention by understatement, don't you think? But yes, if you're writing
a
> letter of recommendation for someone applying to an institution in a country
> where overstatement is the norm you do have to add loads of glitter, or the
> reader will assume the worst, I'm guessing.
>
> Back to Finlayson: why the put-on enthusiasm? Are we (as possibly we should
be)
> so worried that the anxiety of identity (and everything else, all the time) is
> creeping in everywhere? Perhaps play-acting calm would prove therapeutic?
>
> Yours,
> WM
>
> --
> Willard McCarty,
> Professor emeritus, King's College London; Editor, Interdisciplinary Science
> Reviews;  Humanist www.mccarty.org.uk



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