October 26 - UVic bookstore

Marianna Torgovnick, ed., Eloquent Obsessions: Writing Cultural Criticism -- a collection of essays mostly by (self-identified) "younger scholars" ($12.49, on the half-price table).

While their subjects are interesting in themselves (Gerald Graff on "Academic Writing and the Uses of Bad Publicity"; Jane Collins & Catherine Lutz in "Becoming America's Lens on the World" on the cultural role of National Geographic), the essays are intended as models of how one might go about the practice of cultural criticism, and since that can be done ham-fistedly, I look forward to seeing it done well.