“human idea factories”
Part of the first comment at the end of The poet who could smell vowels, which celebrates René de Saussure’s life.
“Thank you so much for your deeply human portrayal of the man Saussure. So often, as you say, we do (or perhaps must) reduce these human idea-factories to a few memorable phrases or greatest-hits concepts. And I think Saussure, because of how widely racinated, how utterly necessary, his ideas have become over so many disciplines, is more vulnerable than most: we think we ‘know’ Foucault, have a grip on who Freud walked around as, don’t feel we need to worry that we might take Marx or Barthes out of context, while the Genevan philologist cited in every liberal arts term paper and dissertation on every continent remains just a surname in a few thousand footnotes. Now at least we can see him in color.”
–Antheia Laplante, Seattle, USA
It’s apparently 150 years since he was born.
Have I mentioned that I miss school? My regrets about not taking more math and science are now in fierce competition with my regrets about not going hard-core into critical theory.
