UPDATED EA on the Road: Reaching the "Sub-Chomskyan"

UPDATE 0715 GMT, 29 APRIL: Back from a long day in London --- many thanks to Mike Dunn for holding the fort and to EA readers for keeping the conversation going.

Two highlights from the conference, which should be out on video soon. One was a paper from an emerging scholar, Maria Ryan of the University of Nottingham, taking apart the idea that US "neoconservatives" have the priority of democracy promotion.

The other was a London lecturer who got just a bit upset and called me "sub-Chomskyan". I thank him and shall wear that as a badge of honour.

'll be in London today for a conference on US Foreign Policy and "Democracy Promotion". Mike Dunn will be minding the shop (and sorting out our Comments crisis Fixed!). Iran updates will be limited, but we already have a set of new features for you to consider and take apart.

Comments

[Catherine]

Scott,
In honour of your new-found status as a "sub-Chomskyan", the exact meaning of which you will have to explain :-), I give you, hot off the Pravda presses:

Chomsky: What's At Stake in the Issue of Iran
http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/113208-chomsky_iran-0

[WitteKr]

Thank you, Catherine, I've always had a soft spot for Chomsky. He makes me 'think out of the box'...
Unfortunately the Pravda article is not very well translated. Which isn't strange since the interview was in English, then translated to German and translated into English again by Pravda.
But fortunately the whole conversation can be seen an heard here: http://kontext-tv.de/node/33

[Catherine]

Cool, WiiteKr. I'm still wondering about the "sub" in "Sub-Chomskyan". Do you think the London lecturer was implying Scott is a sub-set of Chomskyan thought, a nasty clone as it were, or perhaps the lecturer is actually an admirer of Chomsky and was criticising Scott for not being quite Chomsky-esque enough? :-)

[Scott Lucas]

Catherine,

Although I would not dare speak for the esteemed lecturer, I am pretty sure that he is not an admirer of Chomsky. Indeed, I think his comparison was made on the basis of "left-wing ranting".

S.

[Bill]

Oh come now how can we not love Chomsky he's a regular on PressTV for bashing the West. It make one think if Chomsky has ever realized had he been Iranian doing the same thing he would have been killed by the regime long ago. Gotta love the marriage of the too far left aligning themselves at times with some of the world's worst dictorial regimes!!!

[Catherine]

I did a doctoral programme in Romance Philology, and my B.A. and M.A. are both in literature (including a fair amount of linguistics). I didn't know Noam Chomsky was even political until about 5 years ago. I always thought he was just a world-famous linguist. Now it turns out he's a regular on Press TV! Gee.... I really need to get up to speed. I'm wondering now what it is I don't know about Stephen Hawkings... :-)