‘Zum Bullshitter geht der Preis’ — so said the great German author-philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774). Or did he?
Can we trust what we never quite knew about since we never quite got around to reading it? Is it safe to rely on what we overhear in the university common-room or even out there in the real world? And does it matter?
In Bluffworld we are taken through the bildung of a master-bluffer, from a youth spent plagiarising student essays to his magisterial later lectures on the opening sentence of Moby-Dick.
We learn the difference between bullshit and horseshit, the growth of the concept of bluffwork from Freud’s dream work, the power of seeming, and how to use ‘Quite’ and ‘Just so’ to trigger verbal smokescreens when outflanked.
Finally, we see the inevitable terminus ad quem of the Meister-Bullshit-Künstler as our hero confronts the bewildering word-world of a university entirely freed of academics and students: at last, the Management Sublime.
All this and much, much less! Time for another all-staff barbecue!
Victoria University Press and University Bookshop warmly invite you to the launch of Bluffworld by Patrick Evans.
Tuesday 16 March, 5.30pm for a 6pm start at University Bookshop, Canterbury, University Drive, Ilam.
A brief Q&A between Patrick and Philip Matthews will be followed by refreshments.
