[lbo-talk] Inorganic Intellectuals and the Mythical Ideal of the Marxist Tradition

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 1/16/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 16, 2007, at 3:54 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > According to the National Endowment for the Arts, "fewer than 3% of
> > all books published in the U.S. . . . were translations," writes John
> > O'Brien ("A Simple Question," Context, No. 14, 2003, at
> > <http://www.centerforbookculture.org/context/no14/simpleQ.html>).  In
> > contrast, says O'Brien, "In Western European countries, the percentage
> > of translations is about 40-50% each year.  Many of these are from the
> > United States, but a significant number are from a wide range of other
> > countries."  I submit that American intellectuals are not cosmopolitan
> > at all.
>
> I'm not sure what this proves about intellectuals, because that 3%
> vs. 40-50% no doubt includes lots of mass market stuff.

I'm sure both types of translation include lots of mass market stuff,
but, still, they are not in the same league.  Conversations across
national borders are more or less one way, other peoples diligently
studying American culture (high and low) but not the other way around
to the same degree.

So, intellectuals in the USA are not inorganic because they are
cosmopolitan, for they really aren't (though intellectuals in Iran
probably are inorganic in part because they are cosmopolitan, to get
back to the first comparison).


> But certainly
> literary studies has been massively influenced by French, German, and
> Italian writers. At your own university, I see plenty of examples of
> internationalism, e.g. <http://comparativestudies.osu.edu/undergrad/
> under_handbook.htm>. And that's for undergrads, not intellectuals;
> presumably the courses are taught by intellectuals resident in the U.S.

I'm not associated with the OSU any longer.  Who majors or even minors
in Comparative Studies anyway?  That's one of the smallest departments
there, and none of the courses offered by it is required for all
undergrads, though some of them satisfy the GEC requirements.
-- 
Yoshie
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