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Allan Bloom, U of Chicago, author of 'Closing of the American Mind'. Subject of his colleague Saul Bellow's novel 'Ravelstein'. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan Holahan" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 12:47 PM Subject: Re: Bloom's apoliticism Wasn't the Chicago Bloom Alan? The one at Yale was Harold. Still is. Alan's dead. He was part of that strange neocon cluster of fairly "great" scholars at Chicago that seemed, regrettably, to include even the Sanskritist Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty. The star-making you refer to did seem to depend largely on bombast. Has it stopped since? I think I see greedy "stars" all over. I'd hate to be a young, aspiring academic now. on 11/12/08 11:50 AM, Judy Prince at [log in to unmask] wrote: > Susan, are we talking about the same Bloom that held sway at U of Chicago, > those horrid Great Books seminars, and such? I was a longtime Hyde Park > resident, but never attended UC [graduated U of M]; got the feeling, > though, > that bombasting faculty members often became the 'stars', and, therefore, > grabbed up the elite few highly paid professorships. > Best, > > Judy > > 2008/11/12 Susan Holahan <[log in to unmask]> > >> on 11/12/08 10:41 AM, Dominic Fox at [log in to unmask] wrote: >> >>>> His interpretations of individual poems were often--well--off. Look, >>>> for >>>> example, at "The Visionary Company" (very early book on the Romantics). >> Or >>>> don't: it's irritating. He loves to pronounce in large terms, finesse >> the >>>> details. >>>> >>> I believe the term is "strong misreading". Strong critics rationalise >>> their own weaknesses. And rationalise this rationalisation as critical >>> strength. >>> >>> Dominic >> >> You're right. I'd forgotten. Operating under the influence not of anxiety >> but of the great Europeans (Spitzer, Curtius, etc.), I quarreled with >> Bloom >> in his seminar on the Romantics until I ran out of patience. He quarreled >> indulgently with young women then, no "School of Resentment" allusions. >> >> Susan H. >>