Satire is always hungry for pieties: commonplaces we learn and repeat without ever asking how, public figures we esteem without ever quite understanding why. For this reason, there is a certain rhetorical violence to satire that is at once its greatest draw, and its greatest drawback. Because he or she makes sport of powerful people and closely-held ideas, those that society has done its best to sanctify, the satirist is generally held in low esteem — and eventually fired or, in some cultures, jailed and then killed. This is especially true of a satirist working in a very small New England state. In this talk, Professor Baruth will review some of the things he has written which have caused deep offense in the past, and make headway on provoking fresh offense for the future.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Dean's Lecture Award Series.