Yesterday, in a post on this blog, I wrote about the most familiar kinds of genealogies, the familial, and the quest to uncover their details. Today, I want to make note of another kind of genealogy that sometimes obsesses folks like me: our academic ones. Some thirteen odd years ago, shortly after I had finished myContinue reading “Of Academic Genealogies”
Author Archives: Samir Chopra
The Genealogy of Moi
In reviewing Francois Weil‘s Family Trees: A History of Geneaology in America (‘In Quest of Blood Lines‘, New York Review of Books, 23 May 2013) Gordon S. Wood, after tracking an older American obsession with family lineage, possibly noble birth and associated family fortune, notes an interesting statistic: By 2005, a poll found that 73 percentContinue reading “The Genealogy of Moi”
Geronimo and the Cruel, Beautiful, West
Yesterday’s post on the continued presence of derogatory team names and mascots in American professional sports was, in part, prompted by my reading of Geronimo‘s autobiography. It is a short book, an easy read, and comes with an excellent introduction by Frederick Turner. (Geronimo: His Own Story, As told to S. M. Barrett, with introductionContinue reading “Geronimo and the Cruel, Beautiful, West”
Redskins and Indians: America Isn’t Done With the Natives Yet
Years ago, on ESPN, I saw a young African-American player on the Washington Redskins‘ roster interviewed about the periodic controversy over his team’s name. The interviewer asked, quite straightforwardly, ‘Do you think the team should change its name?’ The young man, looking worried–perhaps knowing he stood a good chance of offending someone and aware ofContinue reading “Redskins and Indians: America Isn’t Done With the Natives Yet”
Reflections on Translations-VI: The Advantages to Philosophy
Over at The New York Times‘ The Stone, Hamid Dabashi writes: Though it is common to lament the shortcomings of reading an important work in any language other than the original and of the “impossibility” of translation, I am convinced that works of philosophy…in fact gain far more than they lose in translation. Consider Heidegger.Continue reading “Reflections on Translations-VI: The Advantages to Philosophy”
Hudson Crossings
Yesterday, at the World Trade Center transit station, as I took the escalator down to the PATH train, heading for an afternoon spent with a cousin living in Exchange Place, New Jersey, I made note of a little datum: I’ve been crossing the Hudson–in both directions–for over twenty-five years. One such crossing, back in 1993,Continue reading “Hudson Crossings”
A Smoking Career, Suspended
A New York Times article that wonders, ‘Why Smokers Still Smoke‘ set me to thinking: Why did I smoke? For as long as I did? I smoked my first cigarette in my teen years. My father smoked, as did many of the men–all Air Force pilots–that I idolized. There was glamour and masculinity written allContinue reading “A Smoking Career, Suspended”
‘Little Clouds’ and ‘Enemies of Ambition’
Children leave you little time for ‘work.’ Children are work. They displace priorities; many a career ambition runs aground on the shoals of their demands and needs. So goes an exceedingly common complaint, especially from those who consider themselves ‘creative types’: writers, artists and the like. As Cyril Connolly once noted, ‘That enemy of ambition,Continue reading “‘Little Clouds’ and ‘Enemies of Ambition’”
Amory Blaine’s Disillusionment and Enlightenment
Toward the conclusion of This Side of Paradise, as Amory Blaine as undergoes that educational disillusionment which is our common lot as we ‘mature’, F. Scott Fitzgerald steps up a ruminative commentary detailing the insights his hero is now ‘enjoying.’ These unmask crucial pretensions of the world around him: There were no more wise men; thereContinue reading “Amory Blaine’s Disillusionment and Enlightenment”
Adam Phillips on Self-Knowledge and the Unconscious
Adam Phillips, psychotherapist and essayist, can be a frustratingly elliptical writer. There are allusions, suggestions, shadings and hints in every passage. (I seem to dimly remember a frustrated reviewer in the New York or London Review of Books complaining about this characteristic slipperiness.) From these though, the diligent reader can often find a perspicuous insight,Continue reading “Adam Phillips on Self-Knowledge and the Unconscious”
Samir Chopra 