And Now, a Word from Our Sponsor...
Well obviously, the word is KulturFluff. And just as obviously, a made-up word, a hybrid, a juxtaposition. I'm sort of embarrassed to say just how proud I am of it...
So here's the deal: Kultur is a nod to the Germans, for their attachment to all of the possible connotations that our own English-language "culture" doesn't quite pick up. [See the Wikipedia entry here.] Okay, it's a bit high and mighty, but that seems right to me--we professorial types do love the Kultur-with-a-capital-K. At the same time, I'm a bit suspicious of all that it has allowed people to do, to justify (I'll spare you my canned lecture on canon and hegemony).
Fluff, of course, is the polar opposite: everything from so-bad-it's-good tv to the marshmallow stuff you put in bad fudge. And here again, I do love the fluff (more of the former than the latter kind, admittedly), but I worry that too much of it can make us sick.
Thus, KulturFluff is born (or from your points of view, dear readers, perhaps is borne). From the mind of a lowly professor in the north straight to your greedy little computers, KF is an attempt to make sense of the world between these two poles, while my "real life" wheels away beneath me--a haze of teaching at a small liberal arts college; writing an article; tending to a bungalow in decline; determining what makes me happy on a minute-by-minute basis (a nineteenth century novel here, a re-run of America's Next Top Model there).
Stay tuned. I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog-reading.
So here's the deal: Kultur is a nod to the Germans, for their attachment to all of the possible connotations that our own English-language "culture" doesn't quite pick up. [See the Wikipedia entry here.] Okay, it's a bit high and mighty, but that seems right to me--we professorial types do love the Kultur-with-a-capital-K. At the same time, I'm a bit suspicious of all that it has allowed people to do, to justify (I'll spare you my canned lecture on canon and hegemony).
Fluff, of course, is the polar opposite: everything from so-bad-it's-good tv to the marshmallow stuff you put in bad fudge. And here again, I do love the fluff (more of the former than the latter kind, admittedly), but I worry that too much of it can make us sick.
Thus, KulturFluff is born (or from your points of view, dear readers, perhaps is borne). From the mind of a lowly professor in the north straight to your greedy little computers, KF is an attempt to make sense of the world between these two poles, while my "real life" wheels away beneath me--a haze of teaching at a small liberal arts college; writing an article; tending to a bungalow in decline; determining what makes me happy on a minute-by-minute basis (a nineteenth century novel here, a re-run of America's Next Top Model there).
Stay tuned. I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog-reading.
posted by kfluff at 4:58 PM
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