[lit-ideas] Re: Dead White Man's Guide to the Classics
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 10:52:55 EST
Thanks to Geary for the poem. Apparently I found the book I was looking (not
that I've ordered it yet). Here's the editorial review from Amazon.com
_http://www.amazon.com/Old-Dead-White-Mens-Philosophy/dp/1573928232_
(http://www.amazon.com/Old-Dead-White-Mens-Philosophy/dp/1573928232)
"Old Dead White Men's Philosophy"
by Laura Lyn Inglis Peter K. Steinfeld
Professors of Philosophy,
School of Social Science, Philosophy, and Religion
Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, Iowa.
221 pages Humanity Books; 2Rev Ed edition, 2000.
EDITORIAL REVIEW:
"I was amused and stimulated by this book. It tweaks the
noses of the 'great thinkers,' reverses their reversals, and
offers bright glimpses of the Background which they have
attempted to hide. All those dead white men will
roll over in their graves." --
Mary Daly, author of Quintessence
[Oh, we heard about here on this list, when Judy Evans was _embarrased_ that
this Mary Daly had opened a seminar for _females_ only, alla Sappho.]
FURTHER EDITORIAL REVIEW:
"Until very recently the practice of philosophy was focused
on white, European men who are mostly dead. Perhaps ..."
[Well, Grice died in 1988, so I would grant that]
"the way is now open even in philosophy for new interpretations,
meanings, and dialogues in which women discover their own
sources in the patriarchal canon of the past. And if such sources
do not exist, perhaps the potential for such a voice can be found in the
nature of t
he metaphors that inform those texts."
"In a series of alternative dialogues, philosophers Laura Lyn Inglis and
Peter K. Steinfeld rethink the canon of Western thought using hermeneutics
of subversion that reads between the lines."
"Here one will read about Plato's cave and the Eleusinian mysteries;
what might happen if Anselm's proof for God encountered an argument for
a Goddess; a version of Kierkegaard's myth of Abraham in which he must
respond to Sarah; a curious conversation between Nietzsche's Ubermensch
and an old woman in a nursery rhyme; and a Heidegger who must confront the
matricidal nature of his abyss. Ingliss and Steinfeld's alternative readings
create texts that never occurred. But how might philosophy have been
different
if they had?"
Very good points. I see that it's not strictly what I was thinking though --
I was hoping it would _just_ cover the classics.
I find in the OED no quotes for 'dead white man', but for 'white man's
burden', and more interestingly, 'white man's grave', which is the Gold Coast
of
Africa.
More on Geary's poem, possibly later.
Cheers,
JL
----
Geary:
"DEAD WHITE MAN -- A EULOGY
"I see in my skin the beginnings of a dead white man.
How it wrinkles up on the back of my hands --
looseness, the first sign of letting go.
How it gathers at both sides of my throat
like old men on park benches with nothing to do.
Soon the dewlapping of my triceps,
the breasting of my chest.
My hands and arms are mottled with spots
like lichens on ancient rocks."
My mirror mocks my desire to become
one of the ancient ones.
But I don't know why I'm here,
I need another thirty years.
"Life is a fatal accident,
that's all you need to know."
No, no, there's those Great Books!
I need to read them. One and all.
Find the meaning before I fall.
"Even could you have, you wouldn't have,
that's not the one you are.
Your stubby fingers are perfect
for picking potatoes.
Those books have nothing to say to you."
You're wrong. You're wrong. I'm sure they do.
"Then let's call them forth:
What say ye, O Dead White Men,
what has our friend here to live for?"
Silence. Just the sight of me in the mirror.
Come forward, I cry, come forth and testify,
having lived your life and come back
with the knowledge of death intact,
would you still pursue the metaphysic
over the physical?
Chase down epiphanies aesthetical
or ring down the days in drug induced haze?
Silence. Just the sight of me in the mirror.
"See? Western Civilization
has nothing to say to you,"
my mirror laughed.
----
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