tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post205579170619358866..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Activism and the Academy: A ForumCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-87604900623447230122012-06-01T16:28:43.841-04:002012-06-01T16:28:43.841-04:00My career in activism is very limited, though not ...My career in activism is very limited, though not non-existent, but there are three things that have been said here that strike chords and that I want to resonate with. Two, which I suppose could be expected just by virtue of word-count as well as brilliance, were said by Eileen and one by Cord, and I'll take Cord's first just because I can answer it with data:<br /><br /><i>Getting pepper-sprayed and arrested means nothing if there is no catchy slogan/sound byte that gets your message across.</i><br /><br />This is sadly completely true, but getting pepper-sprayed and arrested is still better than not doing so, and in this Paul might be right, albeit I think not (just) for the reasons he adduces. <a href="http://hnn.us/cliopatria/entries/135384.html" rel="nofollow">I posted on Cliopatria a while back</a> about the last big round of student protests in the UK, for two reasons: firstly, I was shocked by the radicalisation of Cambridge students compared to my day, but secondly, I was dismayed by the fact that they, who got clubbed and beaten by the police but had provoked the police considerably, got reported all over the papers for days, whereas the Oxford group, whose occupation was civilly carried out, whose eviction from University premises was managed quietly and simply by the police, and in whose cause no-one got hurt or arrested, simply vanished from the radar. No violence, no story. If you want to get reported people have got to get hurt, and that means that people are, well, going to get hurt. And where Paul <i>does</i> have a point, and I don't mean to say this to Cord specifically but to the discussion as a whole, is that the morality of equipping people to make the criticisms, see the flaws and plan action against them, is decidedly dubious when we have to face that <i>they will get hurt</i>, and it will stay dubious unless we are also willing to stand down there on the street and get hurt with them. So please, when you say you're equipping people to protest, consider whether you may just have said, "I'm going to get others to do the dirty work for me".<br /><br />Eileen's two remarks, meanwhile, just called up parallels in my mind that seemed worth making:<br /><br /><i>Also, while actually listening to people "on the ground" in Arizona, one of the things I heard was, "please boycott my state."</i><br /><br />From a UK perspective this reminds me immediately of Archbishop Desmond Tutu's repeated pleas for sanctions against South Africa in the years of apartheid, even though he was of course pastor for a flock who would be hurt by them. I remember this especially because the arguments we have seen here <i>against</i> boycotts compare very well to those raised against the effectiveness of economic sanctions against Iraq before the Second Gulf War began. And then lastly:<br /><br /><i>There is no inside/outside: the university is IN the world, and the world itself is IN the university.</i><br /><br />Some day I hope to be able to get all my students to take on board that the same was true of the medieval Church and the world, and there also there might be useful parallels I'm not quite sharp enough to draw.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-38435549753695031742012-05-30T11:09:21.570-04:002012-05-30T11:09:21.570-04:00Just a note that there is an interesting article t...Just a note that there is an interesting article that deals with SB1070 in the May New Yorker: <br />http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/28/120528fa_fact_sannehASMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11435943511202521086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-47439118798121010432012-05-30T10:28:38.326-04:002012-05-30T10:28:38.326-04:00Good. I’m glad to see this thread has not become a...Good. I’m glad to see this thread has not become a “safe space” that engenders only responses that a contributor imagines would be acceptable to most others. Thanks to Jeffrey for creating this space, and for everyone who has offered such a variety of responses. For my part, I’m stuck on what Lisa says in the very first comment above: “our smallest acts matter deeply.” I don’t entirely agree—the acts I think she’s referring to aren’t actually small. In the same vein, to Karl’s comments “it doesn't feel so political or activist when I teach, say, how to read Middle English. Or the finer points of the comma,” I respond, it may not feel activist but it is, because it facilitates future activism. One cannot be properly activist, IMHO, without understanding—or at least trying to understand—the perspective of the other side, even if only to identify it and tear it to shreds. Teaching students how to read Middle English or how to properly use a comma (and to know when others are not doing so correctly) means creating readers and writers who can manipulate language to their own ends and who know when others are doing the same thing. In short, teaching people how to be rhetorically savvy. Whether one uses her powers for what any other individual considers good or evil, rhetoric backed up with a mission is the meat and potatoes of activism. Getting pepper-sprayed and arrested means nothing if there is no catchy slogan/sound byte that gets your message across. At that, it’s got to pack a punch in less than the 30 seconds any audio-visual news outlet is likely to devote to it. In addition, when someone learns to read in Middle English (and in other languages, past and present, not native to him) he must also come to terms with a new expressive lens through which to see the world. Thus, learning Middle English and letting it affect one’s mind has just as much activist potential as reading and deeply engaging with Amiri Baraka or James Baldwin.<br /><br />Now, having invoked Baraka and Baldwin, I finally have to admit that my O about the importance of teaching and learning rhetoric (and medievalism) is not really all that H. That is, my opinion is not that humble. The IMHO was simply me affecting humility in order to get you to buy into my claim—which I stand by, but which I also recognize could be vehemently argued against—that rhetoric is necessary for activism. But then again, I’ll bet you already knew that because you know rhetoric, whether you run into it in online abbreviations, on MSNBC or Fox News, or in scholarly work. Without the knowledge of rhetoric, activism would not be possible. Nor would this important conversation about what activism is and is not. So even if you never leave the classroom, or the bar, if someone has listened and learned then what you have done matters.Cord Whitakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07566856792532065926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-70698436472516243952012-05-29T23:43:17.227-04:002012-05-29T23:43:17.227-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Cord Whitakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07566856792532065926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-41581564619785519782012-05-25T02:43:00.044-04:002012-05-25T02:43:00.044-04:00The question I ask myself is how do I, as a mediev...<i>The question I ask myself is how do I, as a medievalist, unite my study of the past with the mission to act in the now.</i> (David Perry)<br /><br />Although it is very early days - organising a course on Public History (all about the past being active in the present) is forcing me to do this. This is particularly true as I negotiate to bring in teachers from outside the University into a University context (when not all have done anything like this before) - and ultimately I believe it will be true with the students themselves. With my colleagues it is less necessary/possibly immediately - both because their views and actions are reasonably well-established on this (it tends to be the more obviously 'activist' who have volunteered for it - far from all of them modernists) - and because right now we are fiendishly busy marking finals. But it will happen, I believe, as alternative pressures decline and the programme starts. I agree with Karl though that we are opening up spaces in the classroom to actively consider activist uses of the past rather than promoting a particular type or focus of activism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-53121645963764558442012-05-24T20:39:42.486-04:002012-05-24T20:39:42.486-04:00A minor footnote to Karl's comment: "Or ...A minor footnote to Karl's comment: "Or how to tell a reliable Internet source from one that's silly." I can think of few things we could do that would better prepare our students to make good decisions than teaching information literacy. It is not activism in the sense that it does not advocate for any particular position, but telling reliable information from dross, and honest rhetoric from deception is foundational to the process of deciding one's position on issues. It is therefore fundamental to activism!<br />-AsaASMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11435943511202521086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-23157148479383845952012-05-24T16:32:28.466-04:002012-05-24T16:32:28.466-04:00Having read through this thread, I'm struck by...Having read through this thread, I'm struck by a general focus on individual action as an activist member of the academy. This seems good to me, I agree that teaching can be read as activism, and change does happen through thousands of conversations, readings, writings, and other kinds of individual actions. I wonder, though, about the academy as activist.<br /><br />My tiny slice of the academy is, it seems to me, fundamentally activist as a whole. We’re a small Catholic school on the edge of Chicago. The order at the heart of it, Dominican tertiary sisters, remains present in the heart of the school. They have set us a task not to indoctrinate or proselytize, but to "prepare students to pursue truth, to give compassionate service and to participate in the creation of a more just and humane world.” They really mean this, and you don’t get hired here (in my experience) if you can’t respond to the “mission question.” What does this mean to you? How will you put it into practice? Surely such a mission requires faculty to be activists.<br /><br />But it goes beyond the classroom. Our president has spoken out about educating undocumented students. We stop, as a community, once a year, to contemplate the motto of “caritas et veritas.” Like the mission statement, the cynical academic may regard such things as trite. I was tempted when I began here. But caritas requires, in our tradition, activism, not just love (hence the play between the modern terms of charity and love in the Latin word). Veritas requires pursuit of truth in service of the creation of a better world. “Service Learning” or “Experiential learning” is now trendy and I have heard many friends groan about it. Here, the connections between service and learning are more organic. The College of Arts and Sciences has, as one of its core learning goals, to push students to “take a stance” and to participate, to act. <br /><br />All of this comes as something of a surprise to me. I’m the son of reasonably secular academics. My maternal grandparents were Jewish, ardent communists, activists, and artists (albeit blacklisted one). My paternal grandfather was a conscientious objector, a universalist minister, rode the freedom buses, and preached non-violence. I took part in clinic defense as a younger man. This is what activism looks like to me, much like Paul Halsall above I suppose. But driven by caritas, I’ve encountered reshaping of the academy as active.<br /><br />I’m not sure what conclusions, if any, to offer. My school isn’t perfect and we certainly don’t all live up to the ideals we set even most of the time. I think, though, that most of the comments above come from people at either state or secular-private institutions. The religious schools are activist. Some are activist in ways that most here would find objectionable (Liberty, Ave Maria?), whereas the generally liberal values of Catholic social thought are easy to defend among academics, if hard to live up to. But I do want to present this as an alternative model, one that’s been ongoing for generations. <br /><br />The question I ask myself is how do I, as a medievalist, unite my study of the past with the mission to act in the now. I’ll save my thoughts on that for another day, as this is quite long enough.David Perrynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-65146213487342088452012-05-24T13:30:14.891-04:002012-05-24T13:30:14.891-04:00Karl, yes. I too share your concern about power d...Karl, yes. I too share your concern about power dynamics. Well put.Rick Goddenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04109263756022001400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-19525756361315733672012-05-24T13:28:21.142-04:002012-05-24T13:28:21.142-04:00I am in sympathy with Ben's concern about step...I am in sympathy with Ben's concern about stepping on toes. As a grad student, then adjunct, now postdoc, I've been torn often between my desire to do good in the world and my innate caution. My financial situation is precarious enough that I need to be mindful (I don't think I'm alone in this). But, inevitably, whether I am "activist" in the classroom or not, my choices I make as a teacher reflect who I am. My classes often engage with questions of gender, power, race, which are often taken as code for lefty professorism. These choices don't come directly from my lefty politics, though, but rather from what I think is the power of literature, its ability to engage us, to speak to us from subject-positions we might otherwise never hear from. We need to be made uncomfortable sometimes in order to grow, and I want others to experience that.<br /><br />Many others have already addressed the false binary that Paul sets up, but let me just say this: I want to stress the "active" in "activism". I think that the most important thing I do as a teacher is prepare my students to be active in their own lives (public, private, professional, all), to always take an active stance toward information and ideas. I want them to think and to engage, to combine the vita activa and the vita contemplativa. I want them to have discussions of rhetoric in bars. And more.<br /><br />This is not the only strain of activism for the academic of course. Much happens and can happen inside and outside the classroom. But I'm weary of people telling me/us there's ONE way to do it.<br /><br />Just a final thought: And while my politics are left, I don't think this has to exclude the right. One of my most meaningful student encounters was with someone who interned for a Republican congressman. I didn't agree with her politics, but I didn't have to.Rick Goddenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04109263756022001400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-55471298695861142872012-05-24T08:06:27.456-04:002012-05-24T08:06:27.456-04:00ej, agreed i'm not trying to make hard and fas...ej, agreed i'm not trying to make hard and fast rules or other prejudgments about what should or should not be done just begging for a little reflection and reality-checking in a realm often ruled by an ironically unquestioning valuation of the the good with one's particular/insular interests, your many fine and pioneering efforts are more prototypical than typical.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-15871431905289130592012-05-24T03:22:19.798-04:002012-05-24T03:22:19.798-04:00Agreed! And thanks for this discussion. I find Pau...Agreed! And thanks for this discussion. I find Paul's comment interesting as a breakdown of rhetoric, and also interesting in terms--as Paul himself notes--of the way words can go awry.<br /><br />On another note, perhaps more personal, I'm at a school where a lot of the colleagues I talk to are very political: <a href="http://www.moustafabayoumi.com/" rel="nofollow">Moustafa Baymoumi</a>, in my department, who wrote <i>How Does it Feel to Be a Problem: On Being Young and Arab in America</i>, or, in political science, <a href="http://coreyrobin.com/" rel="nofollow">Corey Robin</a>. My colleagues who teach 20th-century lit tend to be very active in our faculty union (as am I, to a degree, in that I'm on the executive board and follow instructions pretty well), and my friends who are labor historians, sociologists, and in one case a <a href="http://samirchopra.com/" rel="nofollow">philosopher</a>, tend to be politically active, and to talk politics, in a way that's, well, recognizably activist.<br /><br />To put this another way: they have a natural opportunity to transition from doing politics and/or activism (which are not quite the same thing, of course) to doing their work, because this <i>is</i> their work, or something close to it. Whereas when I'm doing union stuff at Brooklyn College, I feel as though I'm cutting time out of my medieval scholarship.<br /><br />This may sound like whinging! It probably is, particularly when I know at least one medievalist who has been VERY active in the Occupy movement.<br /><br />While teaching critical animal theory or ecocriticism easily transitions into activism, and it really can feel like you're making some kind of intervention in the classroom to get people to notice things they wouldn't otherwise notice, it doesn't feel so political or activist when I teach, say, how to read Middle English. Or the finer points of the comma. Or how to tell a reliable Internet source from one that's silly. <br /><br />On occasion, <a href="http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2011/10/occupythemiddleages-god-spede-plough.html" rel="nofollow">I have worked my politics into the classroom</a>, but not in a way that my students would notice, I hope. <br /><br />In large part, then, I'm also concerned about power dynamics: I'm the professor, they're the students, and I am enabling, or impeding, their future success. I will intervene, publicly or privately, if a student says something nasty about Jews (this has happened), white people being descended from lepers (likewise!), or women (likewise and depressingly often). But for reason for power dynamics and because my subject's not political except in the sense that everything's political, and every cultural object is political, politics and activism don't fit into my professional life easily.<br /><br />In some sense, I'm exploring the divisions between academic and nonacademic life, between political and nonpolitical studies, that some of us have been discussing. I think the questions themselves are good. The trick is not to pose them, peremptorily, as though they've already been answered.medievalkarlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12440542200843836794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-39328715434447256792012-05-23T19:32:53.095-04:002012-05-23T19:32:53.095-04:00I don't understand what cognitive dissonance a...I don't understand what cognitive dissonance allows someone to write "It is a shame you had to be so insulting here" and then to follow it with "By denying this observation you effect *let off the hook* most academics who can convince themselves, it seems, that by practicing rhetoric in a bar they are engaging in activism."<br /><br />I don't understand people who instead of forming as wide and effective an alliance as possible -- with multiple modes and numerous ways of catalyzing change -- decide they would rather police who counts as a true activist, according to a definition by which they become the truest of the true. <br /><br />Too much activism disintegrates into internecine squabbling, thus dissipating whatever force it possessed for actually achieving something.<br /><br />Here's what I believe: if your focus is upon sorting the true activists from the false, the inside from the outside, then you have the wrong focus. There is too much to be done, too many friends and confederates to energize, too much that demands contemplation as well as action. <br /><br />I find John's words about what unfolded in a bar more full of promise than the scolding comment it elicited.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-21766813445887736822012-05-23T13:32:58.033-04:002012-05-23T13:32:58.033-04:00But "we" are also a "public resourc...But "we" are also a "public resource" and "we" shall invest ourselves; that will be embodied, affective, economic, risky, and material. We [well, some of us, and ME] will aim for big visions that hopefully *will* have actual impact across broad institutional and para-institutional domains. This work will have to be collective; it can not do without affective, enjoying propulsions, partly hard-wired, partly lubricated through some who are willing to charm and seduce and cajole and love.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-70707958275071238342012-05-23T12:44:11.225-04:002012-05-23T12:44:11.225-04:00the question of "real" vs unreal is a bi...the question of "real" vs unreal is a bit nonsensical but the question of actual/enduring (across settings) impact is a serious one.<br />Anecdotes and affect aren't enough when one is thinking about how to invest public resources.<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-42866062293123683832012-05-23T11:10:23.442-04:002012-05-23T11:10:23.442-04:00and if more and more of us may lose our jobs, well...and if more and more of us may lose our jobs, well, i suppose more and more of us will be practicing rhetoric in bars.<br /><br />Cheers.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01066379458312876698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-66207081791422859252012-05-23T10:36:59.660-04:002012-05-23T10:36:59.660-04:00haven't an awful lot of revolutions started of...haven't an awful lot of revolutions started off with people practicing rhetoric in bars? Just a thought.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01066379458312876698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-12773356588791827882012-05-23T10:24:46.525-04:002012-05-23T10:24:46.525-04:00I have a question about methods. It starts with th...I have a question about methods. It starts with the premise that the greatest positive effect that we as academics can have is in the classroom, a point Asa made above. If we do believe that knowledge is power, and that ignorance leads to subjugation, then teaching of any kind is a form of activism. And I have also tried to connect classroom discussions to contemporary topics, but here is where I stumble. What is the line between teaching and preaching? How do I open up the classroom as a place to examine questions of politics and ethics without shutting down the diversity of opinions? I'm thinking here of Nathaniel's perceptive, and largely ignored, question about how we privilege (naturally) our own ideologies, and also John Walter's story about the bar. I don't, at the moment, feel like I know how to facilitate that open exchange of ideas without ultimately using my position of power (as captain of the classroom) to endorse one or the other.<br /><br />I suppose this is something that I just need to work at. But I suppose this is also something that is also a function of my employment status over the past few years: as an adjunct, I haven't wanted to step on any toes. Here, Paul, is where the seemingly low stakes of on-campus activism get raised: as more and more of the faculty is made contingent, fewer and fewer will be willing to teach controversial topics, to oppose political power plays (as at WVU), to get arrested. Some, perhaps braver than me, will still do it, but the trend will be (has already been) towards safe and compliant.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10734718558908036508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-19957805127579074442012-05-23T08:51:11.793-04:002012-05-23T08:51:11.793-04:00Academe has its own insides and outsides, and teac...Academe has its own insides and outsides, and teaching medieval art history in the wilds of Indiana has presented an urgency for activism I didn't feel in Chicago during graduate school. Campus protests and campus situations where I teach are vividly real and confrontational to the students and faculty engaging in them: there's no ivory tower, it's where we live and are, it's what we're accountable to every day. The scale and publicity of activism may vary, but the reality is present _every_where.Annehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02067391488336878220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1227773538724189972012-05-23T04:17:54.678-04:002012-05-23T04:17:54.678-04:00"To suggest that she—acting as rhetorician—wa..."To suggest that she—acting as rhetorician—was not engaged in activism is silly. To suggest that she wasn't on the front line that evening she was sitting at a table drinking beers with those senators is to engage in willful ignorance."<br /><br />It is a shame you had to be so insulting here. What we have in fact is a difference in opinion. I do think academia forms some sort of ivory tower. This may be less so for state schools with broad social intakes. It definitely is the case for the top 20 or so universities in the US. It is also almost always the case in with academic conferences, places of the most intense navel-gazing.<br /><br />By denying this observation you effect *let off the hook* most academics who can convince themselves, it seems, that by practicing rhetoric in a bar they are engaging in activism.<br /><br />We will have to agree to disagree.Paul Halsallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01602075031268155220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-78786721106293206212012-05-23T03:20:56.647-04:002012-05-23T03:20:56.647-04:00And just to add also - that I think much of what y...And just to add also - that I think much of what you cite counts as History, Eileen - many of my History colleagues (and possibly even on occasion my tired empirical self) have gone through so many post-post-modernisms and interdiscipinary this and thats that they have long worked in fields such as intellectual and cultural history, material culture, narrative and fiction, to name but a few. So collectively our conception of History and the Past is very broad - and (whisper it quietly) there are even several non-historians who work with the past involved.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-12807974515897457422012-05-23T02:54:48.105-04:002012-05-23T02:54:48.105-04:00Thanks very much, Eileen!
There are a couple of ...Thanks very much, Eileen! <br /><br />There are a couple of people who might lead this session so I'll pass your suggestions on to them.<br /><br /> Of course one of the sites we can use locally is Clifford's Tower - and we'll have the new 1190 book with essays by Anthony Bale, Hannah Johnson and others ;) to help us there - but the programme is predominantly delivered by people who are neither medievalists nor local historians. <br /><br />I am excited to see what they come up. The first years of new programmes are so often exciting, aren't they, as you forge new ground you have so many conversations and new ideas. This is fun, but serious - serious fun.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-30563596348797863242012-05-23T02:54:17.576-04:002012-05-23T02:54:17.576-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-67908784067377949162012-05-22T22:56:30.552-04:002012-05-22T22:56:30.552-04:00I didn't actually address Nathaniel's ques...I didn't actually address Nathaniel's questions, which I intended to do. Ideally yes, conservative activism should be acknowledged and accepted as legitimate activism as well. (Although I agree with much of Eileen says above on the issue.) <br /><br />While I think that conservative activism should be accepted, I'd also suggest that all activism should be held to standards and subject to critique. And for me, as one committed to a pluralistic, democratic society, the *ability* of activists to engage in civil, respectful discourse is key. Can you sit down with the opposition and have a open, honest, respectful conversation over drinks? One in which both parties—reasonable people of good will—walk away from that conversation believing they were heard and treated with respect regardless of whether or not consensus was reached? If so, regardless of whether or not I agree with you, I would welcome you at my table to hash out ideas and I would support your right to engage in activism for your cause. <br /><br />As Eileen notes, a good amount of progressive activism focuses on inclusion and on creative less restrictions on civil liberties. A good amount of conservative activism focuses on telling others what they can and can't do. <br /><br />In sayiing this, I do realize that the above characterization isn't across the board or some readily black and white. A Pro-life activist doesn't seem his or her self as restricting others but on saving lives. And this, again, is where civil discourse and mutual respect—rhetoric, in short—will save us or fail us. It's not an issue many people are ever going to see eye to eye on, and so understanding is the only way we're going to find a way forward together.John Walterhttp://www.jpwalter.com/machinanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-56984288009696138672012-05-22T22:30:28.394-04:002012-05-22T22:30:28.394-04:00I'd like to thank John for his eloquent commen...I'd like to thank John for his eloquent comments. I have long argued that there is no "real world" that is separate from another place, be that "the Ivory Tower" (really, anyone arguing that the CSU system is an ivory tower hasn't spent time here, in the trenches) or just somewhere *nice.* It seems that the definition is something like the "real world" = everything bad in the world, and where one's rhetorical opponent lives and works is a fictional place. It is all real, the boundaries are porous, and we are all, should be, and must be mearcstapas -- walkers of the borders.<br /><br />When I talk with my students about racism, I am practicing activism. When I talk with them about sexism, anti-Semitism, economic injustice, religious intolerance and so on, I am practicing activism. <br /><br />It is insufficient, but it is real.<br />-AsaASMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11435943511202521086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-70519225758247806342012-05-22T20:12:20.007-04:002012-05-22T20:12:20.007-04:00Oops: not "On the Natural History of Dresden,...Oops: not "On the Natural History of Dresden," but "On the Natural History of Destruction."Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.com