Union
alumnus and class valedictorian, Martin Jay '65, the Sidney Hellman Ehrman
Professor of History at the University of California-Berkeley, will speak on
Wednesday, May 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the Nott Memorial. (Repairs to the building's ceiling are complete.)
His
topic will be “The Ambivalent Virtues of Mendacity: How Europeans Taught (Some
of) Us to Learn to Love the Lies of Politics.”
His
talk, part of 2004 Perspectives at the Nott series, is free and open to the
public.
As
an historian of Western Marxism and the Frankfurt School, Prof. Jay will examine the ways in
which three refugees from Nazi Germany – Leo Strauss, Theodor Adorno, and
Hannah Arendt – introduced subtle criticisms of the American fetish of transparency
and clarity in politics. Arguing for the special place of rhetoric and opinion
in political discourse, and wary of the cult of sincerity, they provided us
with a nuanced understanding of the persistent role of mendacity in political
life, which may give us some perspective on the current surge of indignation
against it.
His
prolific articles and essays have been published in such venues as Dissent, the Partisan Review, Telos, Midstream, the Dictionary
of American Biography, Salmagundi, the London Times Higher Educational Supplement,
the Cambridge Review, and numerous foreign publications as well.
His
most recent book, Refractions of Violence,
was published by Routledge.
A
reception will follow his talk in Hale House.