Learned Ignorance in the Medicine Bow Mountains

Book excerpt: This book is an apologia for the rooted intellectual against the disdainful condescension of the cosmopolitan intellectual¿an apology in the Socratic sense of the word. It reflects the author¿s Texas rootedness unapologetically and offers a polemical but thoughtful indictment of the intellectual prejudice against rootedness; but it is ultimately about the universal human struggle with origins. Contents List of Illustrations Foreword Acknowledgments and Disclaimers Introduction: Attempts: Philosophy as Essay One: A Good Intellectual Is Hard to Find Two: Mind Forg'd Manacles Three: Running and Being Four: The Queen's English, or That Awful English Language Five: Wine of Wyoming Six: Wit and the Art of Conversation Seven: The Fish Eight: ¿A Minor Regional Novelist¿ Nine: Wana Ten: Culture Vultures Eleven: Centennial Twelve: The Sweet Science and the Competitive Spirit Thirteen: The Halfe Ars'd Angler Fourteen: Blood Sports and Haute Cuisine Fifteen: Bread and Wine Sixteen: Idols of the Academic Theater Seventeen: Westward I Go Free Bibliograpy About the Author Index