January 19, 2021
orientation, so far as we can achieve any in this moment
class meets in Zoom
Part I: Explaining the Siege at the Capitol
January 21, 2021
class meets via Zoom
reading: Jankowicz, Nina. 2021. “The Day the Internet Came for Them.” Foreign Affairs January 12.
and
Jacoby, Susan. 2018. The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies. Vintage Books. “Introduction: Anti-Intellectualism on Steroids.”
January 26, 2021
class meets via Zoom
reading: Haidt, Jonathan and Tobias Rose-Stockwell. 2019. “The Dark Psychology of Social Networks: Why It Feels Like Everything Is Going Haywire.” The Atlantic December.
January 28, 2021
class meets via Zoom
reading: Rauch, Jonathan. 2018. “The Constitution of Knowledge.” National Affairs.
February 2, 2021
reading: Merkley, Eric. 2020. “Anti-Intellectualism, Populism, and Motivated Resistance to Expert Consensus.” Public Opinion Quarterly 84(1):24-48.
February 4, 2021
reading: Klein, Ezra. 2020. “Why Democrats Still Have to Appeal to the Center, but Republicans Don’t.” New York Times January 24.
February 9, 2021
reading: Dunning, David. 2014. “We are all Confident Idiots.” Pacific Standard October 27.
siege analysis due at high noon
February 11, 2021
reading: Jacoby, Susan. 2018. The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies. Vintage Books. “Chapter Eleven: Public Life: Defining Dumbness Downward.”
February 16, 18, 23, 2021
no class – ice apocalypse
February 25, 2021
reading: Nichols, Tom. 2017. “Experts and Democracy.” Conclusion in The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters. Oxford University Press.
Part II: Books and the Life of the Mind
March 2, 2021
reading: Jacoby, Susan. 2018. The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies. Vintage Books. “Chapter Two: The Way We Lived Then: Intellect and Ignorance in a Young Nation.”
March 4, 2021
reading: Leslie, Ian. 2014. Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It. “Chapter Four: Three Ages of Curiosity.” Basic Books.
March 9, 2021
reading: Jacoby, Susan. 2018. The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies. Vintage Books. “Chapter Five: Middlebrow Culture from Noon to Twilight.”
March 11, 2021
reading: Jacobs, Alan. 2020. Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind. “Chapter One: Presentism and Temporal Bandwidth” and “Chapter Two: Table Fellowship.” Penguin Press.
March 16 & 18, 2021
spring break, no class meeting!
Sunday March 21, 2021
book analysis due at high noon
March 23, 2021
reading: Jacoby, Susan. 2018. The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies. Vintage Books. “Chapter Seven: Legacies: Youth Culture and Celebrity Culture.”
March 25, 2021
reading: Epstein, Joseph. 2020. “Literature, Then and Now.” National Review December 17:75-6.
and
Bartlett, Bruce. 2020. “The GOP’s Murderous Anti-Intellectualism.” The New Republic July 13.
Part III: Populism, Polarization, Implausible Conspiracies
March 30, 2021
reading: Jacoby, Susan. 2018. The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies. Vintage Books. “Chapter Four: Reds, Pinkos, Fellow Travelers.”
and
Roose, Kevin. 2021. “What Is QAnon, the Viral Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theory?” New York Times March 4.
April 1, 2021
reading: Hofstadter, Richard. 1965. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Chapter Three in The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays. Harvard University Press.
April 8, 2021
reading: Sandel, Michael J. 2020. The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Introduction and Chapter One.
Sunday, April 11, 2021
news consumption action plans due at high noon
April 13, 2021
show and tell day: students’ news consumption choices
Part IV: Trouble on Campus
April 20, 2021
reading: Signatories. 2020. “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate.” Harper’s Magazine July 7.
and
Schuessler, Jennifer and and Writers Warn of an ‘Intolerant Climate.’ Reaction Is Swift.” New York Times July 7.
April 22, 2021
reading: French, David. 2019. “Courage Is the Cure for Political Correctness.” National Review August 20.
and
Maroja, Luana. 2019. “Self-Censorship on Campus Is Bad for Science.” The Atlantic May 28.
April 27, 2021
Jacoby, Susan. 2018. The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies. Vintage Books. “Chapter Nine: Junk Thought.”
April 29, 2021
in class discussion of hoaxsters analysis; paper due before class at high noon, based on students’ earlier reading of:
Sokal, Alan D. 1996. “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.” Social Text 46/47:217-52. [NB: just skim this one, because it was published as a hoax. It doesn’t make any sense.]
and
Pluckrose, Helen, James A. Lindsay, and Peter Boghossion. 2018. “Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship.” Areo October 2.
May 11, 2021
“one more thing” due at high noon
.