The Books That Wouldn’t Die • Hacker News Board

Re: The Books That Wouldn’t Die

#11

Post by vanderZwan » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

> The problem is not simply one of obsolete ideas and refuted arguments but also of untenable form: No one in the academy seems to be writing books like these anymore.

Well, since you cannot determine if it is an Undead Text until it has been thoroughly rejected by the field after a few decades, the only other thing to do is to apply the "anti-disciplinary and scholarly"-litmus test to recent books. There's plenty of those, no? For example, Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century".

Re: The Books That Wouldn’t Die

#12

Post by passthejoe » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

The author name-checked a lot of books but didn't really go into depth. Two that I studied in college, Ong's "Orality and Literacy," and Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" were mentioned by name, but there was no context.

Re: The Books That Wouldn’t Die

#13

Post by vanderZwan » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 6:23 PM UTC

passthejoe wrote: post #12

The author name-checked a lot of books but didn't really go into depth. Two that I studied in college, Ong's "Orality and Literacy," and Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" were mentioned by name, but there was no context.

I'm curious which field Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens is supposed to apply to and rejected by, because it was part of one art-history class I had in art school. We didn't have to read the book itself though.

Re: The Books That Wouldn’t Die

#14

Post by dang » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

blablablabla991 wrote: post #5

I suspect the only purpose of mentioning these "undead texts" is signaling. "See how much of an intellectual I am, I have even read these books which you probably couldn't even stomach".

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

Re: The Books That Wouldn’t Die

#15

Post by bsder » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:49 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #11

> The problem is not simply one of obsolete ideas and refuted arguments but also of untenable form: No one in the academy seems to be writing books like these anymore. Well, since you cannot determine if it is an Undead Text until it has been thoroughly rejected by the field after a few decades, the only other thing to do is to apply the "anti-disciplinary and scholarly"-litmus test to recent books. There's plenty of…

I think the issue is that refutations now occur closer to real-time. Consequently, the book doesn't get time to get buried into academic "consciousness".

I suspect that things like "Freakonomics", for example, would qualify, except that people have already picked it apart.

Re: The Books That Wouldn’t Die

#16

Post by barry-cotter » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 11:43 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #9

barry-cotter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be grateful you can’t remember Imagined Communities. It conflates nations, nationalism and the nation state in an attempt to argue that nationalism postdates the American Revolution. It’s possibly the second worst widely read book in the humanities. Other scholars wrote more intelligently and with far greater insight on the nation and its relation to the state, before and after Anderson. Before, Ernest Gellner, after…

> It’s possibly the second worst widely read book in the humanities. Alright, I've got to ask: what's the worst widely read book in the humanities?

Orientalism, Edward Saïd, a book riddled with factual errors whose Eurocentrism is as complete as that he criticises but of the opposite valence.

Re: The Books That Wouldn’t Die

#17

Post by vanderZwan » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #15

vanderZwan wrote: post #11

> The problem is not simply one of obsolete ideas and refuted arguments but also of untenable form: No one in the academy seems to be writing books like these anymore. Well, since you cannot determine if it is an Undead Text until it has been thoroughly rejected by the field after a few decades, the only other thing to do is to apply the "anti-disciplinary and scholarly"-litmus test to recent books. There's plenty of…

I think the issue is that refutations now occur closer to real-time. Consequently, the book doesn't get time to get buried into academic "consciousness". I suspect that things like "Freakonomics", for example, would qualify, except that people have already picked it apart.

That sounds like a good hypothesis.

I am absolutely with you that in the academic scene refutations happen more quickly now; from what I have been told all academic discourse happens faster, so why would this be an exception. However, I'm not so sure whether these refutations spread among pop-culture more quickly as well.

Freakonomics has been picked apart, yes, but has it faded out of the public consciousness yet?

Re: The Books That Wouldn’t Die

#18

Post by jboynyc » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #13

passthejoe wrote: post #12

The author name-checked a lot of books but didn't really go into depth. Two that I studied in college, Ong's "Orality and Literacy," and Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" were mentioned by name, but there was no context.

I'm curious which field Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens is supposed to apply to and rejected by, because it was part of one art-history class I had in art school. We didn't have to read the book itself though.

I think that would be history, Huizinga's "home" discipline.