In Review: February 24, 1999


Defending the performing arts

It's the play and the song that count

The Pale of Words: Reflections on the Humanities and Performance
James Anderson Winn '68
Yale University Press, $20

In this slender but learned volume, James Anderson Winn '68, the chairman of Boston University's English department, contends that over many centuries, scholars have unfairly maligned the performing arts (especially theater and music) in the rush to glorify texts (mainly literature, poetry, and theory). "Every teacher who treats a modern paperback text of Hamlet as if it were Hamlet," Winn charges, "is a participant in this reductive distortion."

For Winn, the catalyst to action came while reading Allan Bloom's 1987 bestseller, The Closing of the American Mind. In one passage, Bloom mocks a hypothetical 13-year-old who forgoes the intellectual fruits bequeathed to him by centuries of civilization in order to lounge on a couch watching MTV and its "hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents." This anti-music tirade, Winn shows, vaults Bloom into rather esteemed company: Plato, Augustine, and Rousseau are but a few of history's prominent music-bashers. To Winn -- a concert flutist as well as a humanities scholar -- this long-running affront is painful and deserving of a vigorous counteroffensive.

To Winn's credit, much of this intellectually complex book will prove accessible and entertaining to college-educated laypersons. Even so, parts of it are unfocused, and Winn's entire third chapter will likely prove a total loss to anyone not familiar with literary theory. Nor does the author adequately address a relatively innocent explanation for the low stature of performance throughout history: the difficulty, at least in the pre-Edison era, of recording performances for posterity. Also, Winn doesn't examine whether nonwestern cultures have treated performance with any more respect than the West has.

Still, Winn is a savvy observer of intellectual politics, ably dissecting the economic and administrative incentives that encourage academics to overspecialize. "In the world of performance," he writes, "versatility is valued; the capacity of a Wynton Marsalis to play the trumpet brilliantly in either jazz or classical music gains admiration. In the world of scholarship, by contrast, versatility is suspect; a scholar who 'changes fields' is open to the charge of being less serious."

Best of all, Winn is doing something about it. Before taking his current position, he headed the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, which was created to allow scholars from different fields an opportunity to cross-fertilize. Many fellows of the program, Winn writes, "have actually learned how to explain some of their most complicated ideas in more
ordinary language and thus have become better teachers of undergraduates, better writers of books and
articles for the general reader." With today's students far more familiar with Homer Simpson than Homer's Odyssey, such innovative efforts come not a moment too soon.

-- Louis Jacobson '92


Examining the clichés of economics

Making Sense of a Changing Economy: Technology, Markets and Morals
Edward J. Nell '57
Routledge, $22.99

Edward J. Nell '57, a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research, offers in his new book, Making Sense of a Changing Economy, a densely packed critique of current economic thinking that includes references to classic economic theory and names like Keynes, Ricardo, and Adam Smith. His target is the prevailing "econobabble," the "set of clichés, phrases, and postures designed to sound important and appear profound, but which can be easily mastered by anyone with a minimal education." Among those clichés: the dangers of deficits, the need for saving, the rigors of competition, the efficiency of markets. Even today's brightest minds, he argues, too often get it "all wrong."

Time-honored economic theorists, Nell writes, "saw the development of the economy as part of history" -- which he applauds -- and not as a set of models tied to issues of allocation and efficiency. Nell's presentation is contrarian but erudite and self-assured. His voice is learned, cynical, and frequently clever. He mixes his academic arguments with references to the real world, including Princeton and Oxford (where he also studied). He's a scold, but certainly not a bore. Still, this isn't a book to pick up lightly; readers without a thorough grounding and interest in economics may find its demands exceed their supply of attention.

-- Jeffrey Marshall '71

Jeffrey Marshall is editor of U.S. Banker magazine.


The man of my dreams

African-American women speak up

All the Man I Need: Black Women's Loving Expressions on the Men They Desire
Anaezi Modu '82 and Andrea Walker '80
Gateway $15.95

 

 

 

 

 

 

About a year ago, Anaezi Modu '82 and Andrea Walker '80 announced a Mr. Right contest in Essence magazine, in which African-American female readers were asked to identify the qualities they desire in a man. Close to 2,000 responses came in, and from that, 350 of the best were selected for the authors' book All the Man I Need: Black Women's Loving Expressions on the Men They Desire.

The responses are grouped by subject in chapters with titles such as The Conscious Heart, Creative Expressions, and the bluntly worded Romance, Sex and Good Looks.

The respondents are not shy about sharing their views. One example, from a Chicago woman: "The ideal man is my rock in a weary land. He's a strong-willed, God-fearing man. He works hard to make his dreams a reality. Shows compassion and love to inspire you. A sense of humor to wipe your tears away. A man who is on the same page, same paragraph and same sentence as you."

Interspersed throughout are snippets taken from the works of noted authors and poets, including W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. The authors also include various African proverbs and extracts from slave narratives and black newspapers from the 1800s that extol the virtues of men of African-American descent. There's even a test derived from the information the authors have compiled. (Is it bragging to say I passed?)

All the Man I Need presents African-American males in an overwhelmingly positive light. The female respondents are either already happily coupled with strong, supportive, and sexy men, or, for those women still searching for Mr. Right, optimistically hopeful that they too will find him.

The brief demographic analysis at the end of the book could have been more compelling had there also been an evaluation and comparison with what women of other races look for in men.

All the Man I Need is a niche book, to be certain. But at its core, it provides inspiration for anyone willing to read it with an unjaundiced eye.

-- Christopher Simmons

Christopher Simmons, who recently married Allison Davenport '86, is a freelance writer and story analyst for Warner Bros. He and his wife live in Los Angeles.


Fueling up the search engine

Search Engines for the World Wide Web
Alfred '72 and Emily Glossbrenner
Peachpit Press, $17.99

Why is it that computer programs designed to make life simpler often prompt dialogue reminiscent of Catch 22?

-- How do I look things up on the Web?

-- Use a guide.

-- Where's the guide?

-- On the Web.

Rather than pen absurdist novels about the situation, Emily and Alfred Glossbrenner '72 wrote an old-fashioned, pulp-and-ink handbook to the high-tech quest for information in Search Engines for the World Wide Web, now in its second edition.

The Glossbrenners aim to provide what the Web itself inherently lacks: focus. They explain how search-engine programs find and index information, the distinctions among six major engines, and how to use this knowledge to target your queries. Graphics help illustrate such whimsical-sounding features as "spiders" and "radio buttons." Though designed to be read through rather than browsed, the book does include quick-reference charts.

As the book's paradoxical premise implies, much of the information here is publicly available on the Web in some form. However, as a thorough grounding in the technology that is the gateway to everything else on the Web, it should serve neophytes as a solid introduction and advanced searchers as a source of timesaving tips.

-- Snow Tempest '97


Health news

Every other day, it seems, the medical community comes out with another startling new discovery -- leaving the rest of us awash in a mixture of hope and bewilderment, as we struggle to comprehend what this latest breakthrough means for our own health and wellbeing. To date, television has done little to help matters. The sound
bite nature of most news broadcasts is simply too limited to address the subtleties involved in treating and preventing illness.

One happy exception is HealthWeek, a halfhour PBS show produced by Robert Davis '86. Owned by Newsweek Productions, his program makes a point of doing what the nightly news can't, exploring various medical issues in depth, and -- even more importantly -- putting the latest health findings into some sort of context.

"We cover everything from fitness to new medical treatments to managed care," says Davis. "Everyone is being bombarded with more medical information than ever, but they're also more confused than ever. Our idea is to give people information they can use -- taking the issues they've been hearing about and making sense out of them. At the same time, we try to make it entertaining!"

Since premiering in May 1997, HealthWeek has racked up both praise and an impressive list of awards for its health coverage. One recent show, for example, steered the viewer through the pros and cons of giving Ritalin to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), followed by a piece on the controversial offlabel medical uses for Botox (botulinum toxin), an intriguing short bit on why children who watch more TV are also more injuryprone, and a segment that put a face on the famous Framingham Heart Study (a 50year survey of 5,200 Massachusetts residents, which gave rise to the term "risk factor5". The show concluded with some quick advice on strength training and a look at a "boot camp" for nervous firsttime fathers.

If you were watching the Framingham item carefully, you would have noticed that the oncamera reporter was none other than producer Davis himself. "I enjoy the role of manager, but I also like getting out and doing new reporting," he says. "I'm similar to the school principal who still wants to teach a little."

 

Disease and the media

Davis first got interested in health care reportage as an undergraduate. He wrote a junior paper on heart disease and the media -- suggesting ways that the mainstream media might do a better job of spreading the word about how cholesterol, blood pressure, and diet influence cardiac health -- then carried the same approach over to his senior thesis, where he tackled the much dicier subject of how the media were dealing with AIDS.

"I used a theory called media agenda setting," Davis recalls. "The media don't simply pass along news: They tell us what to think about, affecting both our level of awareness and our attitudes about issues like AIDS."

After college, Davis worked for three years as a producer for CNN Medical News in Atlanta, while spending his evenings pursuing a master's degree in public health at Emory University. He was then awarded a Pew Fellowship to a Ph.D. program in health policy sponsored jointly by Brandeis and Boston University. From there Davis went to Whittle Communications' Medical News Network, where he produced a daily program for physicians which was fed directly into their offices -- "a demanding audience, with very special concerns about health policy," he says. He then hooked up with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop ("the most energetic person I've ever met") to put together a series of 30 medical videos.

When Newsweek decided to develop a news show devoted entirely to medicine and health care, Davis was a natural choice for the job of turning this vague idea into a workable concept.

"I basically took the ball and ran with it," he says. HealthWeek is now well into its second season, with no shortage of compelling subject matter. "This week we'll be looking at a new study suggesting that fiber doesn't help prevent colon cancer after all," says Davis, "and then we'll link that to the question of why scientists seem to flipflop so much on what foods to eat. We tell people they need to look at the whole body of evidence on any health issue. One study is never enough."

-- Royce Flippin '80


Books Received

The Future of Modernism, edited by Hugh Witemeyer *66 (University of Michigan Press, $44.50) -- A collection of essays that argue for the continuing relevance and value of modernist writing and suggest directions for future scholarship. Witemeyer is a professor of English at the University of New Mexico.

MASH: An Army Surgeon in Korea, by Otto F. Apel, Jr., and Pat Apel '70 (University Press of Kentucky, $25) -- A memoir of daily life in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. Pat Apel is an attorney.

Secrets of the Pharaohs, by Ian McMahan '62 (Avon, $12.50) -- A history of ancient Egypt. McMahan is a writer living in New York City.


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