On 19 March, the Cultural History section organises a book talk on the new book On Pedantry. A Cultural history of the Know-it-All, written by Arnoud Visser (Utrecht University). In his book, Visser provides a cultural history of a supremely annoying intellectual vice, and explains why know-it-alls get under our skin, and what their history can teach us.
Date and time: 19 March 2026, 13:00-14:00
Location: Utrecht University Library, Tielezaal E1.25
Registration: registration not needed
On Pedantry
Intellectuals have long provoked scorn and irritation, even downright aggression. Many learned individuals have cast such hostility as a badge of honor, a sign of envy, or a form of resistance to inconvenient truths. On Pedantry offers an altogether different perspective, revealing how the excessive use of learning has been a vice in Western culture since the days of Socrates.
Taking readers from the academies of ancient Greece to today’s culture wars, Visser explains why pretentious and punctilious learning has always annoyed us, painting vibrant portraits of some of the most intensely irritating intellectuals ever known. From devious sophists and bossy savantes to hypercritical theologians, dry-as-dust antiquarians, and know-it-all professors.
Visser shows us how criticisms of pedantry have typically been more about conduct than ideas, and he demonstrates how pedantry served as a weapon in the perennial struggle over ideas, social status, political authority, and belief. Shifting attention away from the self-proclaimed virtues of the learned to their less-than-flattering vice, he makes a bold and provocative contribution to the history of Western thought.
Drawing on a wealth of sources ranging from satire and comedy to essays, sermons, and film, On Pedantry sheds critical light on why anti-intellectual views have gained renewed prominence today. The book serves as essential reading in an age of rising populism across the globe.
About Arnoud Visser
Arnoud Visser is Professor of Textual Culture in the Renaissance at Utrecht University and director of the Huizinga Institute, the Dutch national research school for cultural history. His books include A Cultural History of Fame in the Renaissance, Reading Augustine in the Reformation, and Joannes Sambucus and the Learned Image.