Comments on: Unlisted

By: sepoy

sepoy — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 20:03:20 +0000

Fair enough, elizabeth. To be clear, my idea of scholarship is one within which outreach is fundmental. I agree that individuals have varied responses to the type of bullying that CampusWatch can offer. I guess, that is why, I stressed that LB had good support at his/her institution. After all, none of us are scholars in vaccum. Still, I take your point.

About SA/ME: the Hindutva crowd def. paints the_entire_American academy as left/godless attacks – you can see this in the California textbook mess recently. So, the tactics are the same as ME though, less intensive. But, if this Federal oversight thing ever actually happen it will effect all of the area-studies.

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 17:53:41 +0000

While I entirely agree that the anonymity thing is very silly & counterproductive (publish my opinion, CHE, I’ll sign my name!), I still disagree with your contention that Campus Watch et al have not “hindered scholarship”–of course they haven’t managed to censor IJMES or halt the publication of Khalidi, or even get Joseph Massad fired. The formal attributes of scholarship–publication, tenure, etc- remain basically uncompromised. But I think the campaign has had a pernicious effect on people’s willingness to do some of the outreach/teaching stuff that I think is central to scholarship as a broader ‘job’–from taking on controversial topics in class, to speaking to the media, to other forms of activism. Esp. after the Columbia mess, there seems to be an unfortunate siege mentality in ME studies here (in definite contrast to the UK). It’s all very well to say, suck it up and just delete the hate mail, but for a lot of people, dealing with such attacks (on top of everything else on one’s academic/work plate) is daunting, and is enough to keep them from taking a more active stance. (Not everyone can be a Juan Cole, alas.) Crying wolf and staying anonymous is no help, but I also don’t think we should accept that this kind of bullshit as a normal cost of doing business. Plus there’s the continual attempts to subject federal funding to political oversight committees, which could do actual direct damage (as it has in scientific fields such as sexual health research).

On the bright side, I think a lot of people are increasingly inclined to fight back–at MESA there was some very good discussion about getting serious WRT to media outreach in particular. Though sadly, like al-zabaniya, no punchbowl that I could see.

(also: yes, Lal, Doniger, Thapar, etc have suffered similar attacks, but the attempts to discredit whole departments (as at Columbia), or MESA/ME studies in the US in general, seems to me to go beyond that, & has nasty echoes of the assault on China/East Asia specialists in the 50s. The idea is not just to silence a particular speaker, but to tarnish the majority of the people who work in the field with the anti-American/anti-Semitic brush, and thus discredit them in the public debate about policy towards the region.)

By: al-zabaniya

al-zabaniya — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:40:01 +0000

Well said. And something that needed to be said. But I can’t help wondering where the punch-bowl session at MESA is, as I never seem to be able to find it.

By: Land of Lime » Unfinished

Land of Lime » Unfinished — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 02:20:15 +0000

[...] But I want to throw away my notes all this along with my AAS ‚Äòlowlights‚Äô, which can only be shared at the risk of committing professional suicide. Perhaps, it wouldn‚Äôt be such a bad thing, given the depressing state of Conferences and in general, of the intellectual market place. Read Sepoy on the dangers of remaining silent or even writing anonymously. [...]

By: PDCS

PDCS — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 00:09:39 +0000

Speaking of what young, untenured scholars need to do (or for that matter, eminently employable scholars or tenured scholars), sepoy already stated it succintly: stand up for our convictions openly. I would add two more requirements: dignity and civility. If the intellectual marketplace, as Sepoy characterized our work arena, finds that unacceptable, then let us switch professions and sell insurance. or grow coconuts.