The Year's Work in Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons

Description

What happens when math nerds, band and theater geeks, goths, sci-fi fanatics, Young Republican debate poindexters, techies, Trekkies, D&D players, wallflowers, bookworms, and RPG players grow up? And what can they tell us about the life of the mind in the contemporary United States? With #GamerGate in the national news, shows like The Big Bang Theory on ever-increasing numbers of screens, and Peter Orzsag and Paul Ryan on magazine covers, it is clear that nerds, policy wonks, and neoconservatives play a major role in today's popular culture in America. The Year's Work in Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons delves into subcultures of intellectual history to explore their influence on contemporary American intellectual life. Not limiting themselves to describing how individuals are depicted, the authors consider the intellectual endeavors these depictions have come to represent, exploring many models and practices of learnedness, reflection, knowledge production, and opinion in the contemporary world. As teachers, researchers, and university scholars continue to struggle for mainstream visibility, this book illuminates the other forms of intellectual excitement that have emerged alongside them and found ways to survive and even thrive in the face of dismissal or contempt.

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Working in and on Nerds, Wonks, and Neo-Cons, this Year and to Come / Jonathan P. Eburne and Benjamin Schreier
1. Wonk Masculinity / Dennis Allen
2. Surface Worship, Super-Public Intellectuals, and the Suspiciously Common Reader / William J. Maxwell
3. Stratigraphic Form: Science Fictions of the Present / Warren Liu
4. Obsession, Pathology, and Justice: Nerds, Bodies, Winsor McCay, and the 1893 Chicago Fair / Nathan L. Grant
5. The Neoconservative Imagination / Jennifer Glaser
6. Conservative and Internationalist: George S. Schuyler's Pulp Fiction and The Imperialism of The Oppressed / Sara Marzioli
7. The Turing Test and Other Love Songs / Brian Glavey
8. Sex and the Single Nerd: The Schizo Saga of Genes, Genius, and Finally Getting Some / Judith Roof
9. Nerds in Capes: Courtly Love and the Erotics of Medievalism / Jamie Taylor
10. Comic Book Kid/ Scott T. Smith
11. Walking Simulators, #GamerGate, and the Gender of Wandering / Melissa Kagen
12. The Fan as Public Intellectual in "RaceFail '09" / Siobhan Carroll
13. Autism, Nerds, and Insecurity / Chloe Silverman
Afterword: Professors Without Chairs / Aaron S. Lecklider
Index

Sujets

• Social Science
• Popular Culture
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Película fotográfica
• América
• History of film
• American
• Cultural Studies
• Film
• Media

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 17 avril 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253026873
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE YEAR S WORK IN NERDS, WONKS , AND NEOCONS
THE YEAR S WORK: STUDIES IN FAN CULTURE AND CULTURAL THEORY
Edward P. Comentale and Aaron Jaffe, editors
THE YEAR S WORK IN NERDS, WONKS , AND NEOCONS
EDITED BY JONATHAN P. EBURNE BENJAMIN SCHREIER
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
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2017 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Comentale, Edward P., editor. | Jaffe, Aaron, editor.
Title: The year s work in nerds, wonks, and necons / Edward P. Comentale and Aaron Jaffe, editors.
Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, [2017] | Series: The year s work: studies in fan culture and cultural theory | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016040462 (print) | LCCN 2017000858 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253026187 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253026828 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253026873 (eb)
Subjects: LCSH : United States-Intellectual life-21st century. | Intellectuals-United States-21st century. | Popular culture-United States-21st century. | Stereotypes (Social psychology)-United States-21st century.
Classification: LCC E 169.12 . Y 33 2017 (print) | LCC E 169.12 (ebook) | DDC 306.0973/0905-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016040462
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
So this is it, said Arthur, we are going to die.
Yes, said Ford, except no! Wait a minute! He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur s line of vision. What s this switch? he cried.
What? Where? cried Arthur, twisting round.
No, I was only fooling, said Ford, we are going to die after all.
He slumped against the wall again and carried on the tune from where he had left off.
The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams 1979. Reprinted by kind permission of the Estate of Douglas Adams.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION : Working in and on Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons, This Year and to Come
JONATHAN P. EBURNE BENJAMIN SCHREIER
PART I: THROUGH GLASSES, DORKILY
1 Wonk Masculinity
DENNIS ALLEN
2 Surface Worship, Super-Public Intellectuals, and the Suspiciously Common Reader
WILLIAM J. MAXWELL
3 Stratigraphic Form: Science Fictions of the Present
WARREN LIU
4 Obsession, Pathology, and Justice: Nerds, Bodies, Winsor McCay, and the 1893 Chicago Fair
NATHAN L. GRANT
5 The Neoconservative Imagination
JENNIFER GLASER
6 Conservative and Internationalist: George S. Schuyler s Pulp Fiction and the Imperialism of the Oppressed
SARA MARZIOLI
7 The Turing Test and Other Love Songs
BRIAN GLAVEY
PART II: NATURE, NURTURE, NERD: WAYS OF BEING
8 Sex and the Single Nerd: The Schizo Saga of Genes, Genius, and Finally Getting Some
JUDITH ROOF
9 Nerds in Capes: Courtly Love and the Erotics of Medievalism
JAMIE TAYLOR
10 Comic Book Kid
SCOTT T. SMITH
11 Walking Simulators, #GamerGate, and the Gender of Wandering
MELISSA KAGEN
12 The Fan as Public Intellectual in RaceFail 09
SIOBHAN CARROLL
13 Autism, Nerds, and Insecurity
CHLOE SILVERMAN
AFTERWORD : Professors without Chairs
AARON S. LECKLIDER
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Years ago, like when he was first hired as a junior faculty member at Penn State, Ben had an idea for a conference- or seminar-type affair about the New York intellectuals and what they mean today-that is, framed otherwise than by the more or less standard, and reflexive, oscillation between relatively leftist and relatively rightist nostalgic yearnings. Then Jonathan had the idea-and the pluck-to adapt and expand this idea into something like the kernel of what you now see before you. In turn, Jonathan had the energy to keep at it, and Ben had the wisdom to follow his suggestions. So, first and foremost, we acknowledge, and thank, each other.
A few moments ago, Jonathan decided that an epigraph from The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy might make an appropriate opening statement for the contents of this volume. He is currently reading this novel with his ten-year-old daughter, Adelaide, having never done so previously; it is no less a rite of passage for traditional nerds than reciting dialogues from Monty Python-its author, Douglas Adams, was in fact friendly with the Python group and collaborated on a number of radio plays with them. And so the world turns.
Until of course, it ceases to do so: one of the premises of The Hitchhiker s Guide is that the earth has, in fact, been obliterated, owing less to the relentless human exhaustion of the ecosphere than to a bit of interplanetary bureaucracy. The premise is, needless to say, a resonant one. To compile a volume of essays about Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons in an era when we are facing the nonfictional possibilities of global collapse might seem no less alien-or maddeningly flip-of a gesture than Ford Prefect s joke in the face of imminent doom. Only fooling! Such jokes are inveterately nerdy: inappropriate, untimely, and curiously unsentimental. It is in the spirit of such inappropriateness, untimeliness, and curious unsentimentality that we offer this series of reflections on unpopular intellectuals: these may not be the intellectuals you re looking for. The solutions they offer may or may not claim to solve the world s most pressing problems, or to find the secret, hidden switch to reverse all our woe. But who knows? Maybe they will. Either way, why not keep on humming a tune in the meantime? And why not keep on reading? We thus wish to thank you, dear reader, for at least getting this far.
Before the contents of this volume became a book, they took the form of a day-long symposium, held on April 29, 2013, in State College, Pennsylvania, sponsored by the Penn State English Department s Center for American Literary Studies. Thanks to CALS and its intrepid director, Sean Goudie, for making that symposium such a success. And thanks, too, of course, to the twelve symposiasts, most of whom are represented here in this book: Siobhan Carroll, Ed Comentale, Brian Glavey, Jennifer Glaser, Nathan Grant, Aaron Jaffe, Warren Liu, Bill Maxwell, J. Paul Narkunas, James Braxton Peterson, Judith Roof, and Jamie Taylor. We would also like to thank Cheryl Mohr for her support in organizing the symposium, as well as the students and faculty who attended the event.
We would also like to thank the Year s Work series editors, Ed Comentale and Aaron Jaffe, for their enthusiasm toward the project-as well as for their own participation in the original symposium. We are grateful, too, for the support of Indiana University Press, particularly Janice Frisch, in seeing this volume through production, as well as Caren Irr, who offered important feedback, and David Shumway, who reviewed the manuscript.
THE YEAR S WORK IN NERDS, WONKS, AND NEOCONS
INTRODUCTION: WORKING IN AND ON NERDS, WONKS, AND NEOCONS, THIS YEAR AND TO COME
JONATHAN P. EBURNE BENJAMIN SCHREIER
It says a lot about your intellectual life if you remember being pushed around for wearing glasses and reading books as a kid-or if you remember pushing around kids who wore glasses and read books. Such persecutions may have faded to a distant memory or persist as a lingering ordeal. But what was the appeal-or the pathology-of glasses and books in the first place? Perhaps you were a Young Republican and flourished on the debating club; perhaps you were the manager for the varsity sports team, more comfortable with a clipboard than a sports bra or jockstrap. Were these expressions of social belonging (or nonbelonging), or were they active interests, ruling passions that comprised the very lifeblood of intellectual existence? Band and theater geeks, lab rats, wallflowers, bookworms, math nerds, goths, sci-fi fanatics, RPG players: the typology of adolescent outcasts reveals a variety of intellectual subclasses that form part of the basic landscape of school-age flora and fauna, a cross-fertilization of patterns of socialization and patterns of intellectualism. But what can it tell us about intellectual life more broadly? What happens to such ruling passions, for instance, when the kids grow up, go to college, and find work? The Year s Work in Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons takes seriously the kinds of thinkers-and ruling passions-often marginalized or considered simply too weird, too annoying, or too divisive to be considered as real public forms of intellectualism. Nerds, wonks, and neoconservatives have much to tell us about subcultures of adults and kids who pursue the life of the mind in ways that may not fully register among the traditional ranks of public intellectuals, whether pundits or professors. Such subcultures are the subject of this book.
The history of modern American intellectuals has been told, in many ways and by many people, as a history of marginalization. In