For a long time, I conflated the university with the intellectual goods it happened to house. I assumed that if I cared about reading, teaching, inquiry, and intellectual formation, then I had to defend the university in its present form.
I no longer think that.
My more primary commitment is to those practices and to the possibility of participating in them, sharing them, and carrying them forward. The university has cared for some of those practices for the past couple of centuries. In many ways, it is still materially hospitable to them. It gives us libraries, salaries, laboratories, students, and time.
But it has also become increasingly inhospitable to them.
See Chad’s brilliant new book on this subject.
Christianity and the problem of the gods - by Francis Young:
I am not proposing a solution to the problem of the gods. It is an age-old and difficult cultural problem for Christians. But it is worth pointing out that the ‘re-supernaturalisation’ of mainline Christianity we are experiencing in the 21st century – where belief in angels and demons, for example, is once again on the way to becoming normative – leads inevitably to the re-opening of the problem of the gods. Where supernaturalist Christians are interested in re-enchantment and civilisational reconstruction the problem is especially acute; they must grapple yet again with the same questions about the value, moral worth and ontological status of the writings of the ancients that faced the Christian humanists of the Renaissance. Some are managing this better than others, but it feels at times as if the intellectual resources of the present time are unequal to relitigating such fundamental issues.
I like to read lying on the sofa, but if I ever get up and go into another room for a few moments, this is inevitably what I find when I return:
For some time recently I contemplated writing a biography of M. R. James — and I’m now glad I didn’t commit because here’s a new one. Adam Roberts has a review coming soon in the TLS.
A decade or more ago there was a robust ecosystem of libraries and museums sharing items from their collections on the open web, but now they’re all on Instagram and other walled gardens. I think that’s wholly inconsistent with their institutional missions. I hope they come back some day.
Wonderful photo by Wendi Poole of Steuart Pincombe, whose music did so much to enhance this retreat.