Archive for 2023

We wrote some time ago about Stanford’s upcoming “Another Look” event on Herman Melville‘s long short story Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. It’s coming up fast on Monday, January 8 at 7 p.m. (PST) in the Stanford Humanities Center’s Levinthal Hall (This is a hybrid event, so you can come in person or via zoom, but we encourage you to register either way here).

Panelists will include Stanford Prof. Robert Pogue Harrison, author, director of Another Look, host of the radio talk show and podcast series Entitled Opinions, and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, and Stanford Prof. Tobias Wolff, one of America’s leading writers and the founding director of Another Look, as well as a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Two special guests will round out the high-powered panel out to four: Robert’s brother Thomas Harrison, professor of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Katie Peterson, an award-winning poet and Stanford alum. 

The upcoming events brought to mind the late Helen Pinkerton, Stanford’s Melville scholar and poet, who wrote Melville’s Confidence Men and American Politics in the 1850s. Los Angeles poet and friend Timothy Steele wrote an excellent and eloquent appreciation here.

Helen died on this day six years ago, December 28, at the age of 90, but her friend and longtime correspondent (I introduced them) was Patrick Kurp. Many of you will know him from his superb and indefatigable blogging over at Anecdotal Evidence. I wrote him to ask if she had written anything about Melville’s 1853 short wonder of a tale.

He responded by email:

“Thanks for reminding me of Helen. I don’t remember Bartleby coming up in conversation. Most of our Melville talk was devoted to his Civil War poetry and, of course, Moby-Dick.

“Perhaps you’ve already thought of this, but see her suite of five poems titled ‘Melvilleana’ (p. 38 in Taken in Faith; p. 55 in A Journey of the Mind). The second in the series is Bartleby the Scrivener, which comes with the obvious epigraph: ‘I prefer not to.’ Here it is:

His gentle preference endures,
In some of us as a bitter indignation,
In some as willfulness or whim,
Or new philosophy.

History’s strict demand ensures
Survival only of the strict creation:
Our anger’s cause exposed in him,
Our longing not to be.

Patrick added, “Naturally, Helen turns even Melville into a Thomistic thinker.” And so she does.

(Read more about Helen Pinkerton here. And please register for the Jan. 8 discussion of Bartleby here.)

Couldn’t resist a last-minute Christmas post with two seasonal holiday cards from from faraway friends. The first is from award-winning author (and translator) Bengt Jangfeldt, writing from Stockholm. He cites the words of our mutual friend, the Polish poet and friend Adam Zagajewski, who died in 2021 (still hard to write those words), whose lines from “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” translated by the matchless Clare Cavanagh, were never more timely, never more urgent.

The second is from Oslo-based Swedish poet and translator Håkan Sandell, and features a more traditional winter image, a young girl braving the northern winter weather and Arctic darkness with a candle.

Wherever you are, I hope the holiday brings peace, love, and healing for our mutilated world.

A post from our New York City-based (but frequently world travelling) photographer Zygmunt Malinowski. We’ve written about him here and here and here, among other places.

“Right across the Rockefeller center Christmas tree at Promenade angels herald the holiday season overlooking Christian Dior colorful display – several stories high, on the Saks 5th Ave building facade. In the evening this magical display comes alive with dazzling lights when the astrology clock spins accompanied by holiday music. On hand are two girls – they could be Rockettes – decked out in holiday best. They give out fliers inviting visitors to see Christmas Spectacular /Starring the Radio City Rockettes at ‘iconic’ Radio City Music Hall.

Zygmunt is a pro, but he wasn’t the only one taking photos of the season. Farther afield in France, Maria Adle Besson, who heads Think Tank Ivy Plus European Leaders in Paris, celebrated the season at the Hôtel National des Invalides, a prominent Paris landmark, with its famous gilded Dome. (Her friend is Kerry Halferty Hardy.) Visitors can explore the history of France, through the Musée de l’Armée’s collections and the Tomb of Napoleon I in particular, though right now, its theme is Christmas.

And a few quick shots from an overcast Christmas in Avignon…

Please join us for a discussion of Herman Melville‘s classic short story Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street at 7 p.m. (PST) on Monday, January 8, at Levinthal Hall in the Stanford Humanities Center at 424 Santa Teresa Street on the Stanford campus. This is a hybrid event, so you can come in person or via zoom, but we encourage you to register either way (link below). 

Panelists will include Stanford Prof. Robert Pogue Harrison, author, director of Another Look, host of the radio talk show and podcast series Entitled Opinions, and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, and Stanford Prof. Tobias Wolff, one of America’s leading writers and the founding director of Another Look, as well as a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Two special guests will round out the high-powered panel out to four: Robert’s brother Thomas Harrison, professor of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Katie Peterson, an award-winning poet, professor of English at UC-Davis, and a Stanford alum. 

Melville is most famous for his masterpiece Moby Dick, but his 1853 Bartleby is a short wonder, and his protagonist’s repeated “I prefer not to” is one of the most famous lines in American literature. Novelist Sophie Hannah, writing in The Independent, called it “a flawless and ambiguous work of art.” She writes, “Bartleby, blank in character, tests the characters of others. … Bartleby is pure enigma.” 

The short story is famous and widely available – buy a copy on amazon or abebooks.com, in local libraries and in bookstores. It’s also widely available online – google for links. 

This event is sponsored by the Stanford Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, the Stanford Humanities Center, and the Continuing Studies Program at Stanford.

Register here.

For some perspectives on the twentieth century take on the long short story, you might check out the 1970 cult classic of the same name, starring Paul Scofield and John McEnery, here. You can see a short clip over the 2001 remake here. Better yet, read Melville. His long short story (it’s about 30 pages) will surprise you.

I’m late telling Book Haven readers about my most recent honor: From Luke Burgis’s remarks at the inaugural NOVITĀTE conference earlier this month, in presenting me with the inaugural Novitāte Award:

This first ever NOVITĀTE award goes to someone whose work embodies “New Models of Thought and Desire”, which this gathering is all about. She has carved her own (anti-mimetic) path inside and outside the world of academia, oftentimes while standing at the periphery—which is where the misunderstood, and sometimes even the scapegoats, lie. 

Cynthia’s work has been not only intellectually illuminating for me personally—I couldn’t have written my own book, Wanting, without it—but also edifying. 

This award may not be prestigious—yet!—and it comes with a relatively paltry cash prize of $1,000 (we’ll work on that, too!)—but you are the first recipient, and the most worthy that I could think of. I’d like to invite you to the stage to accept this First Annual NOVITĀTE Award for making an outstanding contribution to this year’s theme. Please join me honoring the 2023 award winner: Cynthia Haven.

Cynthia, you are a special person who I’m proud to call a friend. This event would not have been the same without you. You’ve done so much good work for so many years. Nearly every time we talk you remind me of what it’s all truly about. Our time on this earth is very short. As René Girard reminded us ( and as you often remind me), we don’t know how much time we have left. None of us do. You’ve inspired me with a sense of urgency—with a quickening of heart and spirit. And for that I want to thank you. 

Postscript: I almost forgot to include my own brief comments on acceptance of the award: “When Luke first told me about his idea for a conference, I didn’t connect its title, Novitāte, to Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” These words have been a touchstone for me over the years. What I came to understand is this: We can’t change the past, we can’t change our height or our parentage. We can’t change our emotions, at least not directly, because they happen at lightning speed and shapeshift as they move. We certainly can’t change other people – we’ve all tried that. But the one thing we can change the way we think about things – that is in our power. We can rewire our brains a little, and interrupt cycles of envy or resentment or retaliation by shifting our perspective, unsettling our mind a bit. It’s something that can begin now, tonight, and continue for the rest of our days. This week has given us a toolkit for doing so – we can begin renewing our minds now. That may be the best way to commemorate René’s centenary year. I’m deeply honored by this award. Thank you, Luke. Thank you everyone. And most of all, thank you René, and happy birthday.”

“Wherever you go, I will go…your people will be my people.” Ruth converts, as does Ali, not because Naomi convinces her that Judaism is doctrinally right, but because she is impressed by Naomi’s character and wants to join her culture.” ~ Zohar Atkins

Much ink has already been spilled on Ayaan Hirsi Ali‘s conversion to Christianity, which she announced in the online journal Unherd a week ago. It was less of a surprise to me, perhaps. During my interview with the Somali-born activist six years ago, published in Stanford Magazine as “To Change People’s Minds”, she made an offhand, slightly dismissive remark about Christianity in passing, and I told her I was one of “them.” She was momentarily off balance, startled, apologetic – and for a brief instant we were both wide awake and open. And then it passed.

My first encounter with her was a dozen years ago, as I attended an onstage interview in Palo Alto with writer Susanne Pari as interlocutor. The two women were discussing terrorism, and Pari brought up the case of Faisal Shahzad, an apparently assimilated Muslim who turned to jihad and attempted to bomb Times Square. But Hirsi Ali interrupted Pari’s comments about his job loss as a possible motive for his actions.

“I have a problem with that,” she said.  “If we even remotely entertain’the notion that foreclosure and health care and normal adversity is an excuse to take away the life of another, then,“ she said, “we are really going down.”

“He has a freaking MBA!” she exploded. “I know people who can’t read!” Hirsi Ali denied that “the only therapy is to get an SUV and fill it with explosives.” Nor did she excuse Nidal Malik Hasan, who “got to be a major in a voluntary army.”

“Why don’t we take these people at their word? ” she asked. “Why don’t we examine their convictions?”

Pari noted that, in her Iran-American childhood, there was only one mosque in the nation, in Washington D.C., and now there are thousands (“1150,” corrected Hirsi Ali). She took Hirsi Ali, a fellow atheist, to task for the conclusion of her book Infidel, in which she suggests that the love and tolerance exhibited in much of Christianity might be a force to subdue Islam. “I was very naughty!” Hirsi Ali admitted with a chuckle.

Pari said the very idea “was disturbing to me, frankly…What were you thinking?”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali – who lives under a fatwa, still – responded in a beat: “The superficial answer is, if every Muslim became Christian, I would live without bodyguards.”

Back to the present. Over at Zohar Atkins‘s substack, What Is Called Thinking, the rabbi, poet, and theologian argues that “Religion is Social,” and that in fact Ayaan converted to Christianity … via Judaism. (You can catch my podcast with him, “From Envy to Forgiveness,” here.)

He begins:

Outspoken New Atheist Aayan Hirsi Ali has converted to Christianity, but her arguments are more psychological and consequentialist than fundamentalist—she makes no mention of Christian dogma or creed. Instead, she focuses on her own need for meaning and her appreciation for the legacy of Christian culture and civilization when compared to other alternatives. Her conversion story thus bothered Christians and atheists alike. The former, because they felt she had failed to address the question of the truth of Christian doctrine; the latter because they felt she had failed to address the untruth of it. Ross Douthat wrote a compelling piece on her conversion that points to a lacuna in her conversion story, aside from the truth question: “the weirdness of religious experience.” She didn’t just convert because religion is a source of meaning, he says, but because the strangeness of religious experience provokes a recognition that the world itself is strange.

Speaking from a Jewish perspective, the hardline distinction between the truth of a religion, its practical civilizational value, and its psychological import falls away. Both Ali’s Christian critics and atheist critics take too shallow (though possibly an appropriately Protestant) view of religion. In the story of Ruth’s conversion to Judaism, now the paradigmatic script for all Jewish converts, we note that her motivations are primarily social and relational. “Wherever you go, I will go…your people will be my people.” Ruth converts, as does Ali, not because Naomi convinces her that Judaism is doctrinally right, but because she is impressed by Naomi’s character and wants to join her culture.

Jews read the story of Ruth on Shavuot, the Holiday that celebrates the Revelation at Sinai, because the distinction between divine revelation and interdependent communal formation are two sides of the same coin. Some people join because of supernatural experience, per Douthat’s point. But some join because they like the people who have supernatural experience. Or better yet, sitting at the table of deeply kind, deeply thoughtful, deeply inspiring people can itself be a kind of supernatural experience — even if it requires no belief in virgin births or split seas. In the middle ages, Maimonides pushed to shore up Jewish theology along 13 principles of faith, but historically Judaism has drawn friends and converts not because people agreed with these logical and abstract principles but because it has impressed them as a way of life.

Read the whole thing here. It’s wonderful and worth it.