The 1st column for #PastsImperfect is up @LAReviewofBooks. Co-written by myself & @sentantiq w/ aid from @obaniblues, we deconstruct the problems with Joseph Campbell and the Monomyth.
— Dr. Sarah Bond (@SarahEBond) August 12, 2021
But this new column is just the beginning of a few initiatives... 🧵 https://t.co/8MAHSFnZJR
The column, which will be at first monthly for @LAReviewofBooks and then we hope develop into a channel, is focused on global antiquities. Just as the new sectioned headed by @stephanieynwong at @PublicBooks is: https://t.co/7amMNwjUwA
— Dr. Sarah Bond (@SarahEBond) August 12, 2021
We hope paying & publishing writers & editors from diverse & marginalized backgrounds in particular will lift up a new generation in public writing. We are here to help you pitch to us or to other media. We're just starting out here but hope you'll be a part of #PastsImperfect
— Dr. Sarah Bond (@SarahEBond) August 12, 2021
Gee . . . even Steven Weinberg said of multiverse theory in physics that he preferred "a single history" that could unify gravity and quantum theory. I doubt that Campbell thought of himself as a heavyweight scholar, and the efficiency of the author's essay in dismembering his vision seems to raise a whole other host of questions about intellectual integrity. Lessons to be learned in writing criticism, eh? I remember the tweet posted here after the Jan 6th capitol riot in which an academic journalist called the event "performative". Really? When peoples' lives are threatened? Losing the forest for the trees. Bond sounds equally clouded in her opening paragraphs. Mad that work she considers deeply inferior found a huge audience, and unwilling to suggest (at least in this essay) what she actually contributes to a different viewpoint for the public in her own scholarship. Low hanging fruit is the lazy way out.
ReplyDeleteI've never read Campbell nor had any interest in doing so. But I've known about his shoddy scholarship for over four decades.
DeleteQuestion's about intellectual integrity? Whose, Campbell's or the scholars who question his work?
Do you really think the "public" has a right to believe what they want to believe regardless of the truth, as best we can determine it? Do you also think that the people who charged the capitol on Jan 6th are to be excused because they really believed that the election had been stolen from Trump?