Jan Ziolkowski is a Punster of the First Water and no mistake! (I admit to giggling, and giggling is not something I usually admit to — what a delightful take-down of Gumbrecht.) A gorgeous, witty book review and above all lively explication of what the discipline is, its development and place in the history of ideas and history of American academia. (With personal anecdotes and with Puns! Puns! Did I already say with PUNES OR A PLAY ON WORDS?)(And of course what I remember is that when I was in graduate school I took a class with him and he used to tell Latin jokes about imaginary medieval spaghetti machines, I wish I could remember how that went exactly. And that once, when someone mistranslating Alcuin rendered “viator sine vestigiis” incorrectly (they had ‘vestis’ in mind) he pointed out gravely that Alcuin’s was not an example of ancient streaking.)
Best of the Transparent Hummingbird