tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post672290990108784187..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Fuck Pessimism: Embrace YoungsterismCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-37410572866449160162012-01-31T01:40:46.550-05:002012-01-31T01:40:46.550-05:00Jeb: Readings's book is kind of like my bible/...Jeb: Readings's book is kind of like my bible/most cherished book about the university and what it could be. It's been critiqued and rightly so by some scholars [such as Dominick LaCapra] for not getting the history or present state of the university 100% accurately, but . . . nevertheless, it's a hell of manifesto.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-75244126909091114352012-01-30T18:54:50.813-05:002012-01-30T18:54:50.813-05:00'Bingo'
Not read 'The University in R...'Bingo'<br /><br />Not read 'The University in Ruins' yet. Reading the description I got a strong sense of what passed through my mind as a student about the monumental structure and its keepers from the ministry of well ordered ornamental lawns.<br /><br />I always felt I was being trained to sell cultural french fries for a heritage burger industry.<br /><br />Its refreshing to hear you're ideas, energy and passion on these issues.Jebhttp://simianaturae.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-59306733087180955952012-01-28T15:52:02.365-05:002012-01-28T15:52:02.365-05:00Yes! Yes! Yessity Yes Yes!
to so many different p...Yes! Yes! Yessity Yes Yes!<br /><br />to so many different points you make here. Yes to youngsterism, to pushing the boundaries of the university (higher ed, academia, whatever), and YES to accepting and even embracing an alternate space for thinking, learning, and the appreciation of beauty. You mention a gallery, a bookstore, but also twitter, blogs, and U Minn P. The move to the streets is happening in Europe with the Euskal Etxea for Basque Culture in Barcelona and the Centre interregional de desvolopament de l'Occitan in Besiers and many other such institutes that are blurring the lines between academia and public cultural centers. As students drop my Medieval Iberian Cultural History course because they are in business and literature and art isn't relevant I find peace by thinking of these centers where people with no college education come to listen to people talk about medieval troubadour poetry or the linguistic origins of Catalan. College may not be where or when my ex-business student takes the time to develop an interest in history or poetry but she has decades to get to a place where she can.ValerieMWilhitenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-84942860948189901702012-01-28T13:22:12.750-05:002012-01-28T13:22:12.750-05:00Thanks to everyone for the further comments here. ...Thanks to everyone for the further comments here. To Jeb, I just wanted to say: bingo--it's true [and history proves it] that certain radicalizing movements often start out with the right intentions and then quickly harden or sediment or whatever [get too big? too accepted? too mainstream?] into the same sort of rigid status quo they set out to contest. That is why I've always loved Bill Readings's idea [in his book "The University in Ruins"] that we should have the courage to conduct collectivizing [yet always dissensual] projects that we would also be willing to abandon as soon as they served their purposes.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-3255998669135269162012-01-28T01:29:19.025-05:002012-01-28T01:29:19.025-05:00I too found it pretty exhilarating to read you exp...I too found it pretty exhilarating to read you expressing such excitement; there's always room for that. No new intellectual production starts out as a waste, just because it may struggle, perhaps for years, to find an audience. <br /><br />Your post touched indirectly on a slippage that causes a lot of harm. Like a lot of my peers, I arrived at graduate school thinking of myself as a "radical." By that, I meant that I wanted to be part of social change. Pretty quickly, though, I could make out the message, coming from so many mainstream megaphones: you can be as radical as you want, <i>as long as its always about critiquing yourself and your (relatively puny) institutions</i>. Ultimately, though, this increasingly desperate, relentless mode of self-critique just vitiates the very humanities programs it is supposed to rescue. It makes them seem intellectually confused and unattractively petty.<br /><br />I'm <i>not</i> actually looking to push the envelope when it comes to traditional practices in our work. Expending energy on censorship -- don't Twitter this, don't close read that, don't ever post to a blog -- is even less worthwhile. <br /><br />I'll admit -- as much as I rooted for William Morris and before him little Emile -- that I'm not particularly drawn to the craft vocabulary. I really was born with two left feet and ten thumbs, and those memories die hard. But I do think that your instinct here is right. If you aren't looking for manna, you aren't going to find any.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-5803244722063697852012-01-27T18:18:46.670-05:002012-01-27T18:18:46.670-05:00I dropped out of what everyone in my game thought ...I dropped out of what everyone in my game thought would be a highly successfully career in my twenties which I had worked very hard for and was strongly urged not to do by an industry that general does not bother when folks leave, moved into a squat and lived that way for many years. <br /><br />Culture was utterly D.I.Y built by us for us. As Thatcher was in power and schools and libraries were being shut down in large numbers the opportunity to open large venues to host a range of interesting activities that drove authority nuts was not difficult.<br />It never is.<br /><br />It had many good points but I think in our out of institution's people do seem to develop the usual ideas about hierarchy and status and similar fault lines do seem to develop until it becomes controlled by small competing cabals, rigid demanding utter uniformity and can become rather like the thing it professes to despise.<br /><br />Still, it can also be rather fun and is certainly far less predictable.Jebnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-54373198680971440642012-01-26T07:23:26.824-05:002012-01-26T07:23:26.824-05:00Anonymous, I just don't think institutional un...Anonymous, I just don't think institutional universities are the be-all and end-all of intellectual life. Just one of the most convenient places to do intellectual work, and even that only depending on historico-political circumstances. I could provide you with one or two examples, but I suspect you don't really need them.ihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14105686105741162480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-40473445703843661382012-01-25T18:17:25.425-05:002012-01-25T18:17:25.425-05:00i, matter of priorities I suppose. not sure how th...i, matter of priorities I suppose. not sure how that kind of brain drain would make universities better places but maybe that wasn't your point of interest.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-28785371567712916612012-01-25T17:12:24.979-05:002012-01-25T17:12:24.979-05:00Re: Eileen's latest comment:
Or, to put it i...Re: Eileen's latest comment: <br /><br />Or, to put it in medieval terms, the university is just where the scholars and teachers are. I'm thinking especially of the U. of Poitiers, first a group of intellectual refugees, then "incorporated" as a university. But the people came first, not the organization -- as with many of your undertakings.ihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14105686105741162480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-20218297989391993752012-01-25T17:06:32.799-05:002012-01-25T17:06:32.799-05:00Anonymous, I'm all for people changing institu...Anonymous, I'm all for people changing institutions from the inside, slow process though it may be. But if someone has work they deeply want to do that will not be rewarded in the university structure, chances are they're also not going to reach the ranks at which they'll be able to exercise greater influence. They might be better off leaving and doing the work, rather than playing someone else's game until reach full prof, serving on the right committees, and then hoping they'll live long enough to do the other stuff. And maybe universities should become more aware of the great minds they lose/waste/etc.<br /><br />Karl, I had read that particular line in the context of Melissa's comment together with:<br /><br /><i>I mean, if someone else stole my idea... at least s/he was listening to me. And, if s/he then has his or her article published, then at least s/he writes well enough for that to happen.</i><br /><br />And as Melissa was careful to say, she was being tongue-in-cheek, but I was struck by the coincidence of a similar issue being discussed on my listserv, and how unamusing it was in reality. I may have misread both of you, in which case I apologize! But I think my mind was also on the original context for this discussion, i.e., the ethics of tweeting someone else's conference talk, or reproducing it in any other way, without their permission. <br /><br />My stance on that was rather conservative, not because of the technologies involved, but because of the violation of an assumed-oral situation. (A student once recorded one of my seminars without my permission, and when I found out about it I asked hir to erase it -- the assumption everyone in the room was working with was that we were sharing the experience of discussing and learning together, but that it was *not* for posterity.)ihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14105686105741162480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-38279733946771086712012-01-25T16:48:37.024-05:002012-01-25T16:48:37.024-05:00Hi I. I was thinking not in terms of plagiarism (a...Hi I. I was thinking not in terms of plagiarism (and I don't think Melissa was either?) but in terms of whether it gets out there as a book, as a blog, as whatever, so long as it's read and discussed. I definitely see the use, say, of Brill (who else is going to publish that huge monograph on early medieval Romanian history?). But the $90 or $140 book isn't going to get terribly far, not likely.<br /><br />But, yeah, I want my name on it! I'd be outraged and confused if someone plagiarized my work. <br /><br />In re: that story of the work being ripped off....HOW HORRIBLE. I'll bend your ear in person about that sometime.medievalkarlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12440542200843836794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-15022577624788033112012-01-25T16:15:08.138-05:002012-01-25T16:15:08.138-05:00I see that I should have been clearer that I was r...I see that I should have been clearer that I was responding to:<br />"I think the university would be a better place if everyone left when they were miserable"<br />if only working to make things better was the obvious/duh choice...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-30153870319059178752012-01-25T11:47:25.956-05:002012-01-25T11:47:25.956-05:00To Anonymous's comment about parrhesia [and I&...To Anonymous's comment about parrhesia [and I'm actually reading Foucault's writing on that right now, collected in "Fearless Speech"], and no offense, but:<br /><br />DUH!<br /><br />Doing that ALL THE TIME already. This isn't a question of either reform things from the inside or he outside but of doing both all the time. There is nothing wrong, either, with building new para-institutions. The "university" is not just one time and place.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-53671062037501194312012-01-25T09:59:04.297-05:002012-01-25T09:59:04.297-05:00My own response to:
I'm not in Corporate Capi...My own response to:<br /><br /><i>I'm not in Corporate Capitalist Publishing; I'm in education. So I don't really care how my ideas get out there</i><br /><br />Around the same days as this post and the twitter one went up and were being discussed, a scholar on one of my listservs (I think an early modern one) mentioned how her work was heavily plagiarized and published in a CUP monograph when she was just starting out. She was advised that there wasn't much she could do about it, so the senior scholar who stole her material basically got away with it.<br /><br />I was horrified to read this, as were the other folks on the list. It was academic dishonesty, sure, but just as bad or worse, it was abuse of a young scholar's lack of power. And frankly, I think horror was the correct reaction.<br /><br />Karl and Melissa, I sincerely hope no one ever steals your work. To my knowledge no one has ever stolen mine, and I'm not particularly paranoid about it, but I think if it were to happen I would not be sanguine about it. I think I'd feel violated, powerless, upset. And I suspect you might too, though perhaps you really have evolved beyond an identification with the crafting of your ideas and prose. I certainly haven't. I'm not in this gig for the money, obviously, but I am in it because I put a lot of myself into my scholarship. Because it's personal. It's passionate. There's nothing "corporate" about it.ihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14105686105741162480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-63900972538459543612012-01-25T09:43:06.468-05:002012-01-25T09:43:06.468-05:00Thanks for this, EJ, and thanks for the great conv...Thanks for this, EJ, and thanks for the great conversation (to which I'm coming, typically, late). <br /><br />A favorite point, here:<br /><br /><i>I'm not in Corporate Capitalist Publishing; I'm in education. So I don't really care how my ideas get out there</i><br /><br />YES. Yes, again. Whatever works. Whatever's going to get me on a syllabus. Or, to think like the DJ I once was, whatever's going to get the kids dancing is what we ought to do.medievalkarlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12440542200843836794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-61051932108861643612012-01-24T13:14:01.471-05:002012-01-24T13:14:01.471-05:00I saved this post for a rainy day -- ironically, o...I saved this post for a rainy day -- ironically, one of the sunnier ones this past week in the Northeast. Eileen and i, where you speak in the comments about being willing to leave is something that I think a lot of students and non-students in non-tenure track positions need to keep in mind. And what a wonderful idea, to not let the tenure-track (or the lack thereof this particular job marketing season) define me as an intellectual. Good reading, here, comments and all -- there must be a way to keep a universe(ity) as a living and breathing organism rather than the a petrified mass of "the way we do things." It'll be interesting to watch the field over the next few years as its definition and contours change -- as I try, as i so eloquently puts it, to not let the field I've tried to be a part of since I was nineteen define me. An interesting prospect, and one I'm intrigued by.Mary Kate Hurleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14892991966276345782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-83279535893330226372012-01-24T09:54:53.257-05:002012-01-24T09:54:53.257-05:00or maybe folks who are in a miserable system could...or maybe folks who are in a miserable system could first try to work to re-form it by getting directly involved in the politics of their institutions. if you can't speak up in such a relatively safe environs chances are you never will...<br />time to practice parrhesia academic peepsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-18848651687727939132012-01-22T18:51:43.313-05:002012-01-22T18:51:43.313-05:00Maybe this means being willing to leave the univer...<i>Maybe this means being willing to leave the university, which is a terrible thing to say with so many people wanting a foothold IN the university, and not enough jobs to go around.</i><br /><br />You know, as bad as it sounds, sometimes I think that's an option we all should keep in mind, whether or not we got "in." A colleague who was on the job market for many years before getting a university gig (and is now tenured and established and all that jazz) once told me about his realization that he was an intellectual whether or not he had a TT. I've held on to that thought for years, both as a grad student and, now, on the TT. Because as much as I love my job -- and I do have a sweet job, with great colleagues, good students, and much more of everything than I could ever deserve -- I'm really unwilling to let this job define me as a writer or thinker. Or as a human being.<br /><br />But how to do that? I think it means being able to say goodbye. Being able to say goodbye to a PhD that isn't going well or helping you to do what you want to do. Being able to say goodbye to years of fruitless job searches that destroy your love for a subject. Being able to say goodbye to a job that's excellent but not the final chapter in a life story. This is why I love reading those Chronicle articles in which someone talks about leaving their tenured position to do something else. Yes, they seem ungrateful. But they're also free, and their choice to give up this golden prize underscores the fact that no one should be defined by their ability to navigate precisely one career path. <br /><br />Which is to say -- and maybe this is a crazy thing to say -- I think the university would be a better place if everyone left when they were miserable, and if everyone, miserable or happy, truly kept open the possibility of leaving. (Like, you know, other affective relationships...)ihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14105686105741162480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-64201308905859123592012-01-20T18:54:52.279-05:002012-01-20T18:54:52.279-05:00I really appreciate everyone's comments here: ...I really appreciate everyone's comments here: thank you so much.<br /><br />To i, I'm not sure what to say because I can't disagree with any of the points made here relative to the frustrations, anxieties, sleepless nights, understandable risk aversion, and so on. No, it certainly isn't "fun" when you learn, the hard way, that some people [who may also be placed in positions to make your life and career feel miserable at times, or who can maybe even stand in the way of the career you've envisioned for yourself] don't embrace, endorse, or make room for the unfettered intellectual life or wild experimentation: I've dealt with this myself firsthand, but . . . I have just chosen, only in the past few years, really, to stop paying attention to that. Yes, I have tenure now, but even before getting tenure, I had let go of worrying about those things, and yes, I'm a risk taker [and I also work at a university that, in a sense, leaves me alone to do exactly what I want to do: I recognize my good fortune in that regard], but I never said, or meant to say: everyone take risks now, regardless of the consequences. I'm not encouraging *everyone* to jump off cliffs with me, but at the same time, I admit that I AM arguing that, if some of us aren't willing to jump off cliffs, we're not going to move the university [or intellectual life in general] forward in the ways I think it really needs to move forward. Maybe this means being willing to leave the university, which is a terrible thing to say with so many people wanting a foothold IN the university, and not enough jobs to go around. But what I'm also trying to say is: have faith. You don't have to jump off the cliff with me right now, but I'm going, I'm jumping, and what I'm really trying to do, what I've been trying to do for a long time now, is build a better institution, or PARA-institution, that will be MORE liveable for a greater number of people. Which is also a form of belief IN the university. Am I saying: everyone, right now, do this, or else? No. But I am kind of begging, too, for *some* people to join me and help me make this a more liveable, a more creative, and a more progressive university. Institutions such as universities tend to have clay feet when it comes to change [they are the epitome of "moribund," while also providing important spaces for dynamic innovations in thought and intellectual labor], so some change likely really does have to come from the outside, but partly engineered with those on the inside. I won't and can't stop in my tracks every time someone says, "but I'm worried about getting/keeping my job," because you see, that's precisely why I do what I do: so that we can "get away" with more of whatever it is we want to "get away" with, and if we don't succeed, at least we can say something like, "well, we made some stuff, and it was worth it, and it felt good to be alive while doing it." Success would actually be the death of us, because that would just be another route toward a newly bureaucratic institutionality that would go on to stifle more people in the future.<br /><br />But as i says, the university is a great place to get work done, but it does not nevertheless ultimately define or control what that work might be. That's why the university is necessary, isn't it? And certain forms of affective [if also dissensual] collectivity, I really believe, help to carry us through the more personal and darker times of our professional careers [we "bear" things for each other]. That's necessary, too.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-10777494551503122942012-01-19T11:06:18.074-05:002012-01-19T11:06:18.074-05:002. That said, I cannot agree enough with the idea ...2. That said, I cannot agree enough with the idea that the intellectual life (and in this case, I use "intellectual" in a way meant to be broad and include art, movement, love, creation and reflection and conversation of all kinds) is not and should not be bound by the university. Sometimes I think it's a wonder that the intellectual life happens in a university at all, given the university's personal and political allegiances. To use a very crude simile -- I'm sorry, it's all I have these days -- thinking in a university is like peeing in a toilet. It's the most convenient place to do it, the structure is set up precisely for this use, but you might pee more happily and more freely in the woods or while swimming in the ocean. <br /><br />I think part of what makes it a little more difficult to see our way out of this in North America is structural. For humanists, most of the obvious job routes are through the TT, and that is such a rigid and unforgiving process. Part of what's interesting about spending time in Germany is seeing how many humanities institutes, research centres, etc. there are outside of universities, and how many "in-between" jobs there are inside universities too -- a job might be part administrative, part teaching, and still support research, conference travel, etc. I'm wary of romanticizing this too much, as I think we have more money flowing around here and things are often easier on this side of the pond (my friends there spend a lot of time applying for funds), but I think the more freeform model speaks to a dynamic intellectual culture.<br /><br />In the end, I think the focus on the <i>work</i> is what I chime with most. It would never occur to me to think that only a poet with an MFA or a novelist who teaches creative writing in a university is a "real" poet or novelist. Why is it then that we so often think of an intellectual as someone who has a PhD and a job at a university? The university is a wonderful place to get bodily needs taken care of, but it comes with certain strictures on behaviour (you have to flush, turn out the light, replace the finished roll, etc.) But it does not define -- or should not define -- the work itself.ihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14105686105741162480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-2075661580099587822012-01-19T10:47:38.758-05:002012-01-19T10:47:38.758-05:00Eileen, this is an inspiring post, and it's ta...Eileen, this is an inspiring post, and it's taken me some time to digest. I have a minor point of contention and a major point of agreement, so let's do them in that order:<br /><br />1. It's all well and good to say, "Leap into the unknown and damn the consequences," but I think there needs to be some understanding that this is advice that people can only follow to varying extents, depending on their job status, desires for money and job, tenure, and individual risk tolerance. It's one thing for me to say that I loved grad school and didn't worry too much about fitting into all the academic strictures because I knew I could always start from the bottom in some other field, but can I really accuse someone who's on the job market with, say, two kids to feed, of being too cautious, too protective of their work, too careful to publish only in venues that will reap direct rewards on the "market"? <br /><br />My own bushy-tailedness has little to do with technologies or digital-anything (in fact, I've been systematically scaling back my use of those technologies that don't make me a happier person, with great results), but it has everything to do with what you talk about later in your post: intellectual activity that is not bounded by the strictures of the university (or a single field), living a life in which everything -- the books I read for "fun", the books I read for "work", the food I cook, the dance I dance, the friendships I cultivate, the things I keep learning, the non-academic things I write -- make sense together. My role models, both in academe and out of it, model precisely that kind of endless curiosity. And yet I've learned that I have to be careful, not necessarily in what I <i>do</i> or <i>make</i> but in how I manage how it looks. Most people I deal with do subscribe to a vaguely similar vision of the intellectual life, and have been supportive of my naivete and bushy-tailedness. But it was not fun learning that not everyone does. If you'd like to know how many anxiety dreams this little lesson has caused me over the past few months, I'll send you a PM Eileen and give you a rough estimate. Let's just say it's hard to repaint the old barn when you haven't had a good night's sleep.ihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14105686105741162480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-67730426852152689562012-01-16T20:29:08.273-05:002012-01-16T20:29:08.273-05:00Right on, as always, EJ!Right on, as always, EJ!BLBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-12853454713199467342012-01-16T04:42:56.884-05:002012-01-16T04:42:56.884-05:00Great post, Eileen. I have often thought that cyni...Great post, Eileen. I have often thought that cynicism (or realism, as the cynic will claim it to be) is a form of cowardice, because the cynic fears either the imperfect (ie life), or the risks of joy. I agree wholeheartedly with the "just make something" plea: I'm sick, too, of all the complaints about everything. My mother's constant directive, while I was growing up, was "Don't complain about the dark: light a candle!"andreahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08876434177019057530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-61259632984889621302012-01-15T15:43:17.573-05:002012-01-15T15:43:17.573-05:00Great post Eileen! Cheered especially at the &q...Great post Eileen! Cheered especially at the "let's just start making stuff" bit. Onward alternate universe(ity)!Jane Bennettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-2879096521464661942012-01-15T11:48:03.892-05:002012-01-15T11:48:03.892-05:00you're my hero ej, on the subject of sharing i...you're my hero ej, on the subject of sharing inspiration and other forms of conviviality see:<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prpDpSiCzU0&feature=related<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com