Program 03-05-25-B

Listen!

To The Best of Our Knowledge
from Wisconsin Public Radio

Think you know your history? Then, of course, you remember Martin Luther King's famous "If I Had A Hammer" speech. And you know that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife...and she was at rest on Mount Arafat. And you don't need me to remind you that Marie Curie won the Noel Prize for inventing the radiator. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the history of the world like you've never heard it before. According to college students. And we'll meet a man who thinks that nobody is intelligent enough to understand his or her own stupidity. Understand?

SEGMENT 1:

Albert Nerenberg is a film maker in Toronto. He tells Steve Paulson he was watching a documentary about intelligence when it occurred to him that stupidity would make a much more interesting film. Avital Ronell, a professor of German and comparative literature at NYU, has been called "the foremost thinker of the repressed conditions of knowledge." She gives Jim Fleming an inspired take on stupidity.

SEGMENT 2:

As a history professor at Shepherd College in West Virginia, Anders Henriksson has had plenty of opportunity to collect mistakes and bloopers from term papers and college exams. He shares some of the best with Jim Fleming. His book is "Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students."

SEGMENT 3:

Matthijs van Boxsel is the author of "The Encyclopedia of Stupidity." He tells Steve Paulson it started with shame at his own stupidity, but he's come finally to praise it.

Cassette copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 03-05-25-B.

................................................................

Books:

• Matthijs van Boxsel, The Encyclopaedia of Stupidity (Reaktion Books)
• Anders Henriksson (compiler), Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students (Workman Publishing Company)
• Avital Ronell, Stupidity ( Illinois)

Music:

• -- "History Is Made By Stupid People"/The Arrogant Worms
  from the CD, "C'est Cheese" (Festival Distribution, Inc.)
  http://www.arrogant-worms.com/
  -- "Stupefaction"/Graham Parker
  from the CD, "The Stiff Records Box Set - Disc Three" (Demon Records)
  -- "Brain Liaters"/Drums & Tuba
  from the CD, "Mostly Ape" ((Righteous Babe Records)
  http://www.drumsandtuba.com/
  -- "(What A) Wonderful World"/Sam Cooke
  from the CD, "National Lampoon's Animal House - Original
  Motion Picture Soundtrack" (MCA Records)
  -- "Mr. Ghost Goes To Town"/The John Buzon Trio
  from the CD, "Ultra-Lounge Volume Eleven: Organs in Orbit" (Capitol) http://www.ultralounge.com/
  -- "Feelin' Stupid"/Jona Lewie
  from the LP, "On the Other Hand There's A Fist" (Stiff Records)

Links: improbable.com
You can watch the trailer for "Stupidity" at Albert Nerenberg's website...
http://www.trailervision.com/

Distribution dates:

week of 07/11/2004 - hour 2 week of 05/25/2003 - hour 2

Listen!

................................................................

Questions and comments can be addressed to: flemingj@wpr.org

our shows :: about us :: search :: home