Literature and the New Culture Wars
tarahenley.substack.com
Nov 9, 2022 • 38M
Literature and the New Culture Wars
My conversation with Carleton College professor and author Deborah Appleman
Appears in this episode
Tara Henley
Conversations with heterodox authors and journalists from around the world, asking the questions that are not being asked.
Episode details
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“I hate it when I find myself agreeing with people with whom I usually disagree.”
These are the opening lines of a book written by my guest on the podcast today. She’s a progressive professor, but she now finds herself breaking ranks with the left over which works of literature are acceptable to be read and discussed in America’s classrooms.
Deborah Appleman is the Hollis L. Caswell Professor of Educational Studies at Carleton College, and an instructor at the Minnesota Correctional Facility - Stillwater.
Her latest book is Literature and the New Culture Wars: Triggers, Cancel Culture, and the Teacher’s Dilemma.
Deborah Appleman is my guest, today on Lean Out. Transcript to come tomorrow for paid subscribers.
Literature and the New Culture Wars
Nice to hear another voice, especially one in academia who’s seeing it affecting the discussion of what can be read or not. This is the epitome of scariness, in my books. Think of all the repressive regimes across time and around the world, and this is what comes to mind. How do we clue in those who are invested in this mindset that they are actually advocating harmful policies while getting them to open up to the curriculum and allow back and forth discussions like used to happen? Professors need to be at the center of steering this ship, and maybe there needs to be a collective push against the administration who have been caving to woke student demands, that doing this is in fact anti-intellectual and harmful to student learning and campus education. We can’t let the activists steer us off a cliff. Thank you, Tara, for sharing another great voice.
This has nothing to do with this piece, but Globe and mail quasi-anti-woke art review today “Sobey Art Award finalists encourage agreement, but not contemplation” .