Greetings from Prickly Paradigm—we’re back in your inbox with another edition of Prickly Dispatches.

There are only a few days left until the print publication of The Know-Nothing Campaign Against Higher Learning by James Chandler on August 5th. We’ve been looking this month at our past and present through Chandler’s lens, finding resonances between the Know-Nothings and kayfabe in the films of Martin Scorsese and the Fourth of July celebrations in Washington, DC. We also interviewed Anna Grimshaw and celebrated Keith Hart, both essential parts of Prickly’s DNA, and applied Susan McKinnon’s critique of “neo-liberal genetics” to the “manosphere.”

Read on for the latest from Prickly Dispatches.

The Know-Nothing Campaign Against Higher Learning comes out in print next week (August 5) and is available to order now. Chandler, a literary and film critic by training, connects the the Trump administration’s contemporary assault on American universities to the nineteenth century “Know-Nothing” nativist movement, and considers — with the help of Roland Barthes — the limits of irony and satire as a response to Trump’s style of governance. Drawing on Alexis de Tocqueville, the WWE, Jonathan Swift, Stephen Colbert, John Stuart Mill, and his own experience at an institution of higher learning, Chandler takes stock of Trump’s first year efforts to Know Nothing, again. Watch Prickly Dispatches for further updates from the author and press coverage!

We invite colleagues and critics to respond to our pamphlets through our Book Forums on Prickly Dispatches. For The Know-Nothing Campaign Against Higher Learning, leading voices from the war on higher education weigh in. What does Chandler get right? What does he miss?

Our latest two entries to Chandler’s Book Forum take a hard look at the current state of academia. Reflecting on past and present examples of tension between government and universities, Guggenheim Fellow Jerome McGann invites us to ask, “What is higher learning?” And former President of the University of Chicago Don Michael Randel highlights the stark disconnect between the Trump administration’s assault on universities and its stated policy goals.

You can read the full suite of commentary on Chandler’s pamphlet at our Book Forum for The Know-Nothing Campaign Against Higher Learning.

Expanding on his work in The Know-Nothing Campaign Against Higher Learning, Chandler penned a new piece for History Ireland Magazine, where he explores many of the themes at the core of his pamphlet: nativism, anti-intellectualism, and the ironic link between Steve Bannon, architect of much of Trump’s policy, and his Irish immigrant roots. He also draws a fresh connection to the most well-known representation of Know-Nothingism in popular culture: Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002).

In the film, Daniel Day-Lewis plays William “The Butcher” Poole, a real historical figure remembered for his virulent stance against immigration and his role at the head of the Bowery Boys gang. Digging into old copies of The Brooklyn Eagle, Chandler finds potential overlap between Poole and Steve Bannon’s great-grandfather Lawrence. Though there’s no evidence to suggest they ever came in contact, it’s plausible to suspect they may have been in New York City at the same time. “The very idea of him under the tutelage of Daniel Day-Lewis’s William Poole character in Gangs of New York conjures an image to reckon with,” says Chandler. Read PPP’s commentary on the piece here.

Closer to the present, PPP intern Smrithi Senthilnathan (UC Berkeley) wrote a striking on-the-ground report from Washington, DC’s Independence Day celebrations. The fireworks were late, the crowds were sparse, and the mood ranged from surreal to disturbing. Wandering around the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, she found Trumpian kayfabe (explored thoroughly by Chandler in his pamphlet) out in full force. Read her full piece here.

PPP intern Ava Volman (UC Berkeley) interviewed anthropologist and Prickly Pear Pamphlets co-founder Anna Grimshaw about the early days of PPP. Grimshaw discusses her work with fellow co-founder Keith Hart (more on him below) and the pamphlet they co-authored together, the first in PPP history: Anthropology and the Crisis of the Intellectuals. Face-to-face experience selling the work at anthropology conferences inspired Prickly Pear’s run of 10 pamphlets across the 1990s before Matthew Engelke and Marshall Sahlins took over the press and transformed it into the modern Prickly Paradigm. Read Grimshaw’s full interview to learn more about our history and the enduring relevance of the pamphlet format.

PPP co-founder Keith Hart passed away last year at the age of 82. Earlier this month, he was memorialized at Cambridge University by friends, family, and colleagues. To mark the occasion, we looked back on Hart’s legacy, including his foundational early role in our press, his groundbreaking work on informal economies, and his prescient vision of digital publishing. We hope you’ll read the piece and revisit his PPP pamphlet The Hit Man’s Dilemma (2005).

Meanwhile, we revisited Susan McKinnon’s Neo-Liberal Genetics: The Myths and Moral Tales of Evolutionary Psychology (2006) in light of the rising influence of the so-called “manosphere.” Podcasters, influencers, and “red pilled” communities pull from much of the pseudoscience that McKinnon debunked two decades ago. “She shows us how ideology gets dressed up in a scientific suit,” writes PPP publisher Peter Sahlins. Neo-Liberal Genetics offers a potential corrective to the manosphere’s bad faith arguments about gender roles and human nature. Read the article through the link below.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and see you next time.