“A Civilization of Discontents: A Conversation with @NeinQuarterly about Social Media and the Humanities”
UBC welcomes the self-identified “failed intellectual” behind the media phenomenon known as @NeinQuarterly. Dr. Eric Jarosinski, formerly a faculty member in German at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League research institution, has a unique perspective on the role of academic, intellectual, and satirical work in the 21st century world of the Internet, short sentences, and social media. He will host a presentation and discussion at the Ziegler Speaker Series on Nov. 20. One of Jarosinski’s topics will be the possibilities for the humanities to reach broader audiences through the use of social media.
Jarosinski, a writer, speaker, and Germanist based in New York, is an expert on modern German literature, culture, and critical theory. He recently left academia to devote himself to his post as founding editor of @NeinQuarterly, a critically acclaimed compendium of what he calls “utopian negation.”
Cited as some of the best writing on the web, @NeinQuarterly is quickly approaching 100,000 followers on Twitter in over 100 countries. It also appears in a four-line print format, with its trademark scowl based on Theodor W. Adorno gracing the opinion page of Die Zeit, Germany’s leading weekly newspaper. Jarosinski’s first book, Nein. A Manifesto, will be published in 2015 in Germany by S. Fischer and the Netherlands by Lebowski. Jarosinski and his NQ work have been featured in Slate, The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, The Paris Review, on Public Radio International, and in many other venues. His voice is, in his own words, “misanthropic yet romantic, authoritative yet ridiculous, principled yet darkly nihilistic.”
