Salon.com > Academia http://www.salon.com Sat, 25 May 2013 01:08:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 When Derrida discovered Marx http://www.salon.com/2013/04/28/grappling_with_specters_of_marx_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/28/grappling_with_specters_of_marx_partner/#comments Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13283127 Los
Angeles Review of Books ON THE OCCASION of the 20th anniversary of the “Whither Marxism?” conference conceived by Stephen Cullenberg and Bernd Magnus and organized by the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside, we asked Peggy Kamuf to reflect on the lecture that Jacques Derrida delivered there: “Specters of Marx.” The lecture was eventually published as a book, translated into English by Kamuf, and subtitled The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International. It stands as a landmark text in Derrida’s oeuvre.

¤

“I meant to read Marx my way when the time came.” So Jacques Derrida declared in an interview with Michael Sprinker in 1989. Four years later, the conference “Whither Marxism?” was going to give him the occasion to do just that: read Marx his way. That was also the year, of course, the Berlin Wall fell, and then the dominoes continued to fall all over the former Communist bloc. So — in the ruins of Marxism, on the grave (good riddance!) of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinism, or whatever name is finally settled upon for the monstrous construction that had just fallen apart — the time had finally come to read Marx.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/28/grappling_with_specters_of_marx_partner/feed/ 34 William Shakespeare: Legendary playwright and exploitative businessman http://www.salon.com/2013/03/31/william_shakespeare_legendary_playwright_and_exploitative_businessman/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/31/william_shakespeare_legendary_playwright_and_exploitative_businessman/#comments Sun, 31 Mar 2013 20:52:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13257292 If there is such a thing as a big scandal in the literary community, this may be it: New academic research has found that William Shakespeare was a cut-throat businessman who often engaged in illegal activities at the expense of the very community he represented in his plays.

From the Daily Mail:

William Shakespeare was threatened with prison for dodging tax and illegally hoarded food to sell on at inflated prices, new research has revealed.

An academic study looking into Shakespeare's 'other life' as one of Warwickshire's biggest landowners has uncovered a less than savoury side to Britain's greatest playwright.

The allegation he exploited famine has also lead to suggestions that his 'Coriolanus,' for years regarded as a plea for the starving poor, was in fact his way of trying to expunge a guilty conscience.

The paper, written by Jayne Archer, a researcher in Renaissance literature at Aberystwyth University, Richard Marggraf Turley, a professor in the department and Howard Thomas, a professor of plant science found that by "combining both illegal and legal activities, Shakespeare was able to retire in 1613 as the largest property owner in his home town."

"His profits — minus a few fines for illegal hoarding and tax evasion — meant he had a working life of just 24 years."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/31/william_shakespeare_legendary_playwright_and_exploitative_businessman/feed/ 13 Assaulted by an art professor http://www.salon.com/2013/03/29/assaulted_by_an_art_professor/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/29/assaulted_by_an_art_professor/#comments Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13255127 Dear Cary,

After a hard-earned master's degree in graphic design and several years of industry experience often working 60-hour weeks, I accepted a position as an assistant professor of graphic design in the art department at a Northeastern university in the fall of 2000. I was excited to enter this new chapter in my life. I was not prepared for what I was about to encounter.

The art department consisted of 16 full-time faculty and many adjunct faculty. The majority of the seven tenured senior faculty were men. The majority of the nine nontenured faculty were women.

What people don't talk about is how dependent the junior faculty are on senior faculty. The imbalance of power is far stronger than the power imbalance of faculty to student. A student wants a good grade to move on to the next class. He/she wants to graduate, to go to a good graduate program, and eventually move away from the university. The junior faculty must have the approval and support of senior faculty for promotion, for raises, and for a permanent position in the department. The support of senior faculty is critical every year and at every juncture.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/29/assaulted_by_an_art_professor/feed/ 48 Will Wikipedia replace the academic thesis? http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/will_wikipedia_replace_the_academic_thesis/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/will_wikipedia_replace_the_academic_thesis/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:22:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13245902 Global Post KYIV, Ukraine — Click on a Wikipedia topic about optometry in the Polish language or Newtonian mechanics in Ukrainian and the article that pops up may well be a college student thesis.

That’s because universities in Poland and Ukraine are exploring new requirements. Instead of cribbing research from Wikipedia for papers that will probably only gather dust, advocates of the idea say students would be better off writing their own Wikipedia articles.

Although critics warn that Wikipedia articles are no substitute for rigorous academic papers, supporters say more than simply putting more information at public disposal, erasing boundaries between the internet and academia will invigorate scholarship by enabling it to benefit everyone.

"Contributing to Wikipedia considerably increases students' motivation since their articles can be read by the whole world, not just their teachers or supervisors," argues Sergei Petrov, one of the Wikipedia project coordinators in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute ran a test program during its last fall that produced 23 new or expanded articles on Wikipedia Ukraine.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/will_wikipedia_replace_the_academic_thesis/feed/ 6 My fake college syllabus http://www.salon.com/2013/01/26/my_fake_college_syllabus/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/26/my_fake_college_syllabus/#comments Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13182366 The following syllabus is for my new class, English 401: The Short Novel, meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:10-2:50pm.

Course Description 
In this class, we will analyze some of World Literature’s greatest short novels in an attempt to interrogate the essence of plot and character while reading as few words as possible. Each class session will begin with a student presentation of 15 to 20 minutes, so we’re looking at an effective class time of about an hour. I’d love to give you a five-minute break halfway through the period, with the tacit understanding that we actually blow 15, but then I’d have to pretend I didn’t notice when 36% of you didn’t bother to come back. Or I’d have to pass around the attendance sheet again, which is a major pain in the ass.

After the student presentation, which should cover structure and theme but will seldom rise above rote plot summary, I will provide whatever historical and biographical context is both critical to our understanding of the book and available on Wikipedia. But I will sound so authoritative and well-versed that you’d never know this, even if you had the book’s Wikipedia page open on the laptop you’re pretending to take notes on, rather than your Facebook newsfeed.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/26/my_fake_college_syllabus/feed/ 108 The U.S. won’t admit this dying Iranian sociologist http://www.salon.com/2012/11/22/the_u_s_won%e2%80%99t_admit_this_dying_iranian_sociologist/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/22/the_u_s_won%e2%80%99t_admit_this_dying_iranian_sociologist/#comments Thu, 22 Nov 2012 13:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13105290 Dr. Rahmatollah Sedigh Sarvestani is dying. The Iranian sociologist, recently retired from a long teaching career at the University of Tehran, suffers from prostate cancer and a pelvic tumor. With his kidneys failing after chemotherapy, doctors in Tehran have stopped treating him.

His last hope is to come to the U.S., where his wife and children are, and where doctors say he could receive potentially life-saving treatment.

But the U.S. won't let him in. And they won't say why.

In March, Sarvestani's visa request was denied. The consulate cited a clause in the Immigration and Nationality Act: Activity "relating to espionage or sabotage." No further information is provided.

"We were absolutely shocked," said his daughter Sahra. "My father is a sociologist. He has cancer."

Sarvestani, who is 64, has recently been confined to a wheelchair and weakened by severe anemia. Sahra says she can barely hear him on the phone: "I would assume he would need to talk and move to spy on the U.S."

The family has made a last-ditch effort to bring him here on humanitarian parole — a short-term, discretionary travel permit for extraordinary circumstances. The family has collected dozens of letters of support from academic colleagues and family members in the U.S., as well as one from his daughter Soureh's congressman, André Carson, D-Ind.

The U.S. could have incriminating information on Sarvestani. But without knowing the details, the family doesn't know how to respond to them.

Instead, they are left to speculate. Sarvestani studied at University of Akron, in Ohio in the 1970s. Two of his daughters were born in the U.S. Like many Iranian students at the time, he supported the overthrow of the Shah and the Iranian Revolution. He belonged to a student group that organized protests in support of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

But traveling to the U.S. hadn't been a problem before — Sarvestani spent a sabbatical year in California in 1994. And more recently, Sarvestani has been an open critic of the Iranian government.

"I can't believe they are dismissing his application over something that happened three or four decades ago," said his son, Hadi, who works at a law firm in Indiana. "It's at the point where he's so ill it takes multiple people to care for him, multiple people to get him out of bed. It's baffling." (ProPublica was not able to speak directly with Sarvestani. We reviewed supporting documents and interviewed former colleagues, students and others.)

In denying a visa, the State Department is required only to cite the relevant provision of the law, not provide evidence or rationale. That is the case for all denials, not just those related to national security.

There is also almost no way to appeal a visa decision. A precedent known as the doctrine of consular non-reviewability holds that they can rarely be challenged in court.

Spokesmen for the State Department and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told ProPublica they could not comment on individual cases.

Sarvestani was known for his work on poverty, drug addiction, and urban spaces. His students recall him as religious and politically moderate. His ties to officialdom, according to his family, are limited to work for the Iranian Olympic Committee, and acquaintances among the upper echelons of academia in Iran, such as Mohammed Javad Zarif, a former colleague at the University of Tehran and previously Iran's envoy to the U.N.

His son Hadi said that if his father felt a sense of duty, "it was to the academic world in Iran, to the doctoral students he was close to, and to his position of academic leadership."

According to Sarvestani's wife, Mahboobeh Ayatollahzadeh, Islamic student groups regularly criticized him as pro-Western. In 1985, a hardline Islamic student group campaigned against Sarvestani's appointment as dean of social sciences at his university. The group circulated pamphlets tying him to the U.S. and mentioning his family, who are Baha'i, a persecuted religious minority in Iran. He was forced to step down, eventually returning as a regular faculty member. (Ayatollahzadeh is a school psychologist in Indianapolis, but is currently in Tehran, caring for her husband.)

Sarvestani began keeping a blog in August 2008, where he wrote academic and social commentary, including often barbed invectives directed at members of the Iranian government.

Reza Akbari, who chronicled the Iranian blogosphere on the website InsideIran, characterized Sarvestani's stance as liberal for Iran.

"He could express critical views of the government because of his academic credentials, because he was very well respected," said Dr. Zohreh Bayatrizi, a former student who is now an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Alberta.

"During the election it got so dangerous. I would call him, crying, and say please don't post anything about this on the blog," recalled Sarvestani's daughter Sahra.

The government shut down the blog in July 2009, shortly after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election. (The disputed vote sparked widespread protests from the reformist opposition, which came to be known as the Green movement. Bayatrizi remembered Sarvestani coming to class with a green armband.)

Last year, Sarvestani was pressured into retiring early from the university. After 2009, said Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University, the government "went methodically through and purged members of the Green movement." Iran has also made a concerted effort to rid the educational system of Western influences.

Sarvestani has also experienced personal tragedy. In 2006, his mother was found murdered in her home. No investigation was conducted, but the family believes it was because she led Baha'i prayer meetings.

His family has not yet told Sarvestani that the U.S. denied his visa because of "espionage."

He is "weak and highly vulnerable, both physically and emotionally," his daughter Soureh wrote in a letter submitted with his parole application.

After the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. began to treat immigration and visas as a front line in counterterrorism. Iranians, whose country has long been designated a state sponsor of terrorism, have faced particular scrutiny.

Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council, said that his organization frequently receives complaints from Iranians perplexed by visa denials. "You've already got Iranian passport. That's a red flag," Parsi said. "Then you have something in the past, and that's another red flag. Too many red-flags and that's it."

Last year, the State Department denied 268 visas under the espionage clause, more than double the number from five years ago. In 2001, there were just 19 such denials. The State Department doesn't provide denial statistics by nationality. But earlier this year, Bloomberg reported at least six Iranian engineering students denied visas under the espionage clause.

If a consular officer has concerns about an application, the officer requests input from intelligence agencies. Consulates now request these reviews with increasing frequency, according to Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Before 9/11, he says, there were a few thousand a year. In the financial year 2011, there were 366,000, according to figures provided to Congress by the State Department this March.

The review, which must be repeated each time a visa is sought, also often causes delays in visa decisions.

Sarvestani has waited nearly nine years. He first applied for permanent residence through his daughter Soureh, a U.S. citizen, in 2003. In 2009, finally, the application was approved — a good sign, the family thought. But after an interview with a State Department official in Turkey, and more waiting, the denial arrived this March.

Sarvestani's lawyer, Denyse Sabagh, has represented several other clients whose visas were denied under other national security grounds, such as material support for terrorism. In most cases, she said, it was near-impossible to figure out what the exact issue could be, let alone challenge it.

This spring, Sarvestani's family filed Freedom of Information Act requests to try to determine the block on his record. In September, the FBI wrote to say it had more than 2,000 pages of potentially responsive documents. They haven't been released yet, but there is evidence that the agency has long investigated the student group that Sarvestani belonged to in the U.S.

Sarvestani arrived in the U.S. in 1977, a tumultuous period in U.S.-Iranian relations. The shah — who had come to power in a U.S.-backed coup — faced mounting protests. Hefled the country in January 1979, and by the end of that year Iran was an Islamic republic under Khomeini.

During these years, Sarvestani belonged to the Muslim Students Association Persian Speaking Group (MSA-PSG), comprised mostly of Iranian Shiite Muslims in the U.S. (and sometimes known as Anjoman Islami, the Farsi phrase for an Islamic student group). According to Sarvestani's family, he went to demonstrations, ran a call-in news hotline, distributed Iranian media to the diaspora, and organized sales of religious books. He also acted as a liaison between bickering factions of Iranian students, traveling frequently to other centers of Iranian life to mediate confrontations.

In August 1980, as the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran stretched on, Sarvestani joined about 50 members of MSA-PSG staging a hunger strike in front of the White House. They were protesting alleged mistreatment of pro-Khomeini demonstrators arrested in D.C. in late July.

Federal investigators told reporters at the time that the demonstrations were funded by Iran, which MSA-PSG denied.

Hamid Algar, a professor at University of California, Berkeley, who has written on Iranian Islamic groups, says that MSA-PSG did not have formal ties to the government, but was "thoroughly in support of the revolution."

According to the family, most of Sarvestani's colleagues in MSA-PSG returned to Iran, and Sarvestani had only periodic contact with the U.S. group once he left. The Sarvestani children all went to Catholic school in the U.S., where Sarvestani's wife had the children attend Mass daily, though the school did not require it. (She has long worked on interfaith educational initiatives.)

Today, MSA-PSG continues to hold a yearly conference. A photo of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khameini adorns one corner of its website, an Iranian flag the other. The most recent public statement from a government official on the group is Senate testimony by then-FBI Director Louis Freeh in 1999. He described it as "comprised almost exclusively of fanatical, anti-American Iranian Shiite Muslims," which "the Iranian government relies heavily upon...for low-level intelligence and technical expertise." In 2004, the New York Times profiled an Iranian-American couple that was fired from government jobs after failing a security check, apparently because they had attended MSA-PSG conferences in the late 90s. Beyond Freeh's statement, there is no public evidence linking MSA-PSG to criminal activity.

When Sarvestani returned to school in Akron after the White House demonstration, his department chair told him the FBI had questioned them about his activities. Sarvestani assured his boss he had done nothing illegal.

Shortly before Sarvestani returned to Iran in 1984, according to his family, he was also approached by U.S. government officials who said they had observed his work as a student organizer and would like for him to stay in the U.S. Sarvestani skipped a follow-up meeting at the Chapel Hill Mall, in Akron, and returned to Iran as planned. Soon after, Sarvestani's in-laws received an envelope from the U.S. addressed to Sarvestani. Inside was a greeting card with the printed line, "hope we get together real soon." Beneath it, written in block letters: "AT CHAPEL HILL MALL." Sarvestani still has the card.

None of this seemed to matter in 1994. That year, Sarvestani returned to the U.S. for a yearlong sabbatical in California, during which he translated a book on coaching strategies into Farsi. (Gary Walton, the book's author, remembers him fondly. Sarvestani arranged for Walton to give a seminar to Iranian Olympic coaches in 1997, Walton says, but the State Department advised against it.)

Sarvestani's wife, Ayatollahzadeh, says that when processing their visas for the sabbatical, their consular office said that her husband was "on a list," but that he would approve their visa anyway. Sarvestani returned to Iran the following year, leaving behind Ayatollahzadeh, who was by that time pursuing her own PhD, and all of the children.

The plan was for Sarvestani to join them after a few more years. It has been 17.

Ayatollahzadeh and the children now take turns traveling to Iran to care for Sarvestani. They worry constantly about their safety or that one of them will be stranded in Iran with visa troubles of their own. They have nearly exhausted leaves from work, says Sarvestani's eldest daughter Sahra, who is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. (A permanent resident of the U.S., she has done work for the Department of Defense.)

After doctors in Iran found the pelvic tumor this summer and ceased treating either cancer, the family sought out second opinions in the U.S. Several oncologists reviewed his case and said Johns Hopkins in Baltimore could offer, as one doctor wrote, "novel treatments unavailable in Iran or neighboring countries." Postponing treatment "will significantly reduce this patient's chance of survival."

Humanitarian parole is a discretionary, temporary permit based on either extreme need or pressing public interest, to be turned to if no ordinary visa is available. It is not the same as asylum, or refugee status. There is no appeal, and no reason given for a decision. Roughly 25 percent of the humanitarian parole requests received each year are approved, according to a Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman. Last year, there were 1,500 applications.

The family applied for parole right after his visa was denied, on the basis of financial and emotional hardship, but was denied. They applied again last month, citing urgent medical need.

For now, Sarvestani waits in Iran. His daughter Soureh, who recently returned from a visit, says he is receiving only minimal medical attention, as his doctors consider him "incurable." On top of the cancers, Sarvestani is an amputee and now suffers blood clotting. Obtaining prescriptions and medical equipment in Tehran can be a costly bureaucratic nightmare. Back in the U.S., Soureh, who is a computer specialist for Indianapolis Public Schools, says it fills her with guilt to "simply pull up to a CVS drive-thru window. Medical care in Iran and the U.S. is like night and day."

Soureh brought her two-year-old daughter Fatimah with her to Iran — Sarvestani's only grandchild. They spent long hours together in Tehran. Now, Internet bans have made video chats difficult, so Soureh lets Fatimah chatter on the phone with him.

"My father is a gentleman and a scholar," Soureh wrote in a letter alongside photos of Sarvestani and Fatimah. "This is a plea for human dignity."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/22/the_u_s_won%e2%80%99t_admit_this_dying_iranian_sociologist/feed/ 6 Should I quit academe? http://www.salon.com/2012/11/14/should_i_quit_academe/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/14/should_i_quit_academe/#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2012 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13071374 Hi Cary,

I'm suffering from a high-class problem that I wonder if you can reframe for me. I turned 40 this year. I've been working at a tenure-track academic job for three years, after 10 years as a student. For the past 12 years I've been living abroad in North America and Asia. I was materially comfortable in each location, but being in places without the kind of cultural depth that is my European inheritance, and among people whose values I don't really have much common ground with, I felt like I was breathing oxygen-depleted air. Over time it became exhausting.

Added to this, I increasingly don't care about any of the conversations going on in my academic field. I've stopped keeping up with scholarship and started reading and writing whatever I want. My few publications are in different fields from the one in which I got my Ph.D., and they have a mystical bent that borders on flakiness by the standards of this profession. I no longer fit any of the categories in which I might get a new job, and the chances of being able to move closer to home are therefore slim. I may be committing slow professional suicide, but probably I could survive in my present position for the rest of my career if I wanted to. I might even evolve into something that would make a different kind of sense within academe, and eventually be able to change jobs.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/14/should_i_quit_academe/feed/ 22 Of time and academia http://www.salon.com/2012/10/11/of_time_and_academia/ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/11/of_time_and_academia/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13036483 Dear Cary,

I love your column. I love your political commentary even more. Your last piece on Romney was genius. Thanks for making my day.

OK. Here's the question. I'm an INTP. (The N is 26 to 1 Intuition over Sensation.) I'm a professional academic, and pretty successful at it. I have tenure. I've written two books. My introversion doesn't hinder my being a highly effective presenter at conferences. Even if I need to retreat to recharge with my dogs on a regular basis, an academic schedule makes that easy to handle. So what could be the problem, right?

I love to write. But I never have enough time. I've managed to get a novel out on Kindle and two books out with good university presses, but my super-heavy teaching load and service load do not permit me to achieve what I might otherwise achieve. I'd like to work at a research school with a lighter teaching load instead of a teaching school. But I'm not sure anyone would hire me at my age. Moreover, my considerably older husband works where I do and is very happy. He doesn't want to budge. I'm already 55. If I make a move it has to be now, and it may already be too late.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/10/11/of_time_and_academia/feed/ 18 Eric Hobsbawm in quotes http://www.salon.com/2012/10/01/eric_hobsbawm_in_quotes/ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/01/eric_hobsbawm_in_quotes/#comments Mon, 01 Oct 2012 16:24:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13026856 In the early hours of Monday morning, celebrated British historian, staunch Marxist and public intellectual Eric Hobsbawm died at age 95.

Hobsbawm's ideas will long survive him, especially through his major works, "The Age of Revolution," "The Age of Capital," "The Age of Empire," "History of the 20th Century," "The Age of Extremes," which has been translated into 40 languages since its 1994 publication. Despite shifting trends in the academy, Hobsbawm stuck by his Marxist guns throughout. Here are a few of his thoughts on war, capital and nationhood:

On war and capitalism:

"War has been the most convenient pseudo-solution for the problems of twentieth-century capitalism. It provides the incentives to modernization and technological revolution which the market and the pursuit of profit do only fitfully and by accident, it makes the unthinkable (such as votes for women and the abolition of unemployment) not merely thinkable but practicable. What is equally important, it can re-create communities of men and give a temporary sense to their lives by uniting them against foreigners and outsiders. This is an achievement beyond the power of the private enterprise economy when left to itself." (The Observer Review, 1968.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/10/01/eric_hobsbawm_in_quotes/feed/ 5 Income inequality greater than in 1774 http://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/income_inequality_greater_than_in_1774/ http://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/income_inequality_greater_than_in_1774/#comments Wed, 19 Sep 2012 20:18:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13016434 In the past year a steady stream of articles has trumpeted the gravity of current U.S. income inequality levels. We've not seen these levels of wealth inequality since before the Great Depression, analysts remark. The Roman Empire, one study argued, was more equitable than the United States is now. And on Wednesday, the Atlantic picked up on another alarming comparison: "Income inequality is worse now than during slavery."

Jordan Weissman writes:

The conclusion comes to us from an newly updated study by professors Peter Lindert of the University of California - Davis and Jeffrey Williamson of Harvard. Scraping together data from an array of historical resources, the duo have written a fascinating exploration of early American incomes, arguing that, on the eve of the Revolutionary War, wealth was distributed more evenly across the 13 colonies than anywhere else in the world that we have record of.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/income_inequality_greater_than_in_1774/feed/ 4 Your brain loves Jane Austen http://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/your_brain_loves_jane_austen/ http://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/your_brain_loves_jane_austen/#comments Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:05:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13015011 Few freshly minted English professors expect to end up learning how to position people in an fMRI scanner -- that noisy, white, coffin-like medical instrument used to measure blood flow to the brain. Yet that's just what has happened to Natalie Phillips, an assistant professor in the English department at Michigan State University, who is working on a study that originated at the Stanford Humanities Center. The project measured subjects' brain activity as they read chapters from the Jane Austen novel "Mansfield Park," asking that they switch between the relaxed mode of pleasure reading and the more analytic practice known as close reading.

Preliminary results have shown significant differences between the two types of reading, which may not surprise any undergraduate who slacked off on his Milton thesis by reading a James Bond novel. Nevertheless, neuroscientists who have studied such things in the past have rarely distinguished between types of reading or observed subjects engaged in the protracted reading of complex texts. The pioneering research that Phillips and her colleagues at Stanford and Michigan State are doing will provide us with unprecedented information about how our brains accomplish the mysterious and remarkable act of reading a novel. It's early days yet, but I telephoned her recently to find out more.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/your_brain_loves_jane_austen/feed/ 7 Accused student: Harvard “out for blood” http://www.salon.com/2012/09/02/accused_student_harvard_out_for_blood/ http://www.salon.com/2012/09/02/accused_student_harvard_out_for_blood/#comments Sun, 02 Sep 2012 14:19:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12999440 It’s a new school year in Cambridge, Mass. Sculls skip across the choppy Charles, coy freshmen size each other up, pretending they belong, and scores of Harvard students and recent graduates are implicated in an academic scandal on a scale that dean of undergraduate education Jay Harris called “unprecedented in anyone’s living memory."

Almost half of the 279 students who took assistant professor Matthew Platt’s Introduction to Congress class in the spring are under investigation for cheating. According to a letter to students from Harris, the charges are “academic dishonesty, ranging from inappropriate collaboration to outright plagiarism, on a take-home final exam.” (The university has not acknowledged the specific class.)

One senior who’s under investigation, and who spoke to Salon only on condition of anonymity, said that the scandal was a crackdown on a course that has a reputation for being easy. The course had a “culture” in which collaboration was “fostered, encouraged, expected.” Students were encouraged to treat exams like “problem sets,” which the student understands to allow collaboration.  “The bubble burst this year and we’re being scapegoated."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/09/02/accused_student_harvard_out_for_blood/feed/ 44 CERN’s expensive science http://www.salon.com/2012/07/05/cerns_expensive_science_salpart/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/05/cerns_expensive_science_salpart/#comments Thu, 05 Jul 2012 13:29:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12951002 London, UK — Nearly four years after the launch of one of the largest and most expensive experiments ever conceived — to prove or disprove the existence of the “God particle” — scientists this week gathered to make a heavily hyped announcement:

They’ve found something, but they’re still not sure exactly what it is.

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You can be forgiven for being slightly underwhelmed. The online buzz has been building for several weeks in anticipation that the quest to unlock the secrets of the Big Bang and the very fundamental structure of the universe would deliver something a bit more conclusive.

Instead, from Fabiola Gianotti, an Italian physicist in charge of one of the two main experiment teams, we get this: "We observe in our data clear signs of a new particle, at the level of five sigma, in the mass region around 126 GeV.”

Translated into Earthspeak: The Large Hadron Collider — the complex equipment built to find the particle known to scientists as the Higgs boson — has recorded strong indications that what they’re looking for exists, but they’ll need to study it further to know exactly what it is.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/05/cerns_expensive_science_salpart/feed/ 15 Majoring in Potterology http://www.salon.com/2012/05/25/majoring_in_potterology/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/25/majoring_in_potterology/#comments Fri, 25 May 2012 19:20:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12925540 Last week in Scotland, 60 scholars gathered over two days for the U.K.'s first scholarly conference on the Harry Potter series. The Guardian newspaper quoted John Mullan, a professor of English at University College London, questioning the wisdom of organizing such an event. Concluding that the host college, the University of St. Andrews, was primarily after "publicity," Mullan suggested the attendees would be better off forgetting kids' books and cultivating their gravitas. "They should be reading Milton and 'Tristram Shandy,'" he told the Guardian. "That's what they're paid to do."

The criticism brought to mind a lengthy discussion on Reddit last year, inspired by an anecdote from a bookstore clerk who sold copies of all four "Twilight" novels to a sheepish professor. The professor's explanation: "Every time I reference low forms of literature, I always use 'Twilight' as the example. Today a student asked if I’ve actually read them, and I had to say no. They demanded that I do."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/25/majoring_in_potterology/feed/ 84 We had all the time in the world http://www.salon.com/2012/05/09/we_had_all_the_time_in_the_world/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/09/we_had_all_the_time_in_the_world/#comments Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12915192 One of the enviable perks of the academic life is the funded year off that comes every seven years, and my husband and I were miraculously scheduled for sabbatical at the same time. The year fell during what was technically the second year of our “empty nest,” but it was the first time we’d be without children and day jobs. Unlike our colleagues, who head to dusty provincial church archives to research the something-something in medieval Spain, we were free to go wherever. Filled with ideas for almost every medium — play, essay, screenplay, pilot, humor pieces — I dreamed of untold productivity and an endless summer at my in-laws’ lake house in New Hampshire. I would finally have the time and quiet I’d been hungering for after 19 years of teaching and raising children.

Staying on in a summer community is like being in a department store after closing, or the zoo after dark. I wanted the place to empty out. I wanted to turn at the flashing light without waiting for the endless line of cars piling in from Boston. And yet the weekend after Labor Day, when I showed up at the flea market ready to bag the bargains that await the locals, I discovered there was no flea market after Labor Day. In high summer I bitterly complained about the busy, noisy beach where it was impossible to read undisturbed. But when I took a late September swim, it was eerie to find myself alone there. I felt like a ghost, condemned to wander the places where I was happiest.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/09/we_had_all_the_time_in_the_world/feed/ 17 MacArthur Foundation reveals 2011 “genius grants” http://www.salon.com/2011/09/20/us_genius_grants_1/ http://www.salon.com/2011/09/20/us_genius_grants_1/#comments Tue, 20 Sep 2011 12:52:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2011/09/20/us_genius_grants_1 A Chicago skyscraper architect, a New York City children's choir founder and a North Carolina scientist who studies how to prevent sports-related concussions are among the latest 22 recipients of the no-strings-attached MacArthur Foundation "genius grants."

The $500,000 fellowships for 2011 were announced Tuesday by the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Recipients largely don't know they're in contention for the annual awards, and often learn they're winners with an out-of-the-blue phone call informing them they'll receive the money over the next five years.

"I was dumbfounded, I actually cried," said Francisco J. Nunez, 46, founder of the Young People's Chorus of New York City. Nunez finished what he called a "very strenuous" board meeting when he received a call from a phone number he didn't recognize.

"I get this call from a gentleman," Nunez said. "He tells me to tell whoever I'm with to leave and go into a private room. Next thing I know I have to sit down at my desk. I started shaking."

Recipients can spend the money however they like, but many like Nunez say the honor of the fellowship makes them focus on what they would accomplish in their fields if only they had the means. And now they do. His group's many choir programs have more than 1,000 young singers.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/09/20/us_genius_grants_1/feed/ 4 When Jonathan Franzen came to town http://www.salon.com/2011/06/22/when_jonathan_franzen_came_to_town/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/22/when_jonathan_franzen_came_to_town/#comments Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2011/06/21/when_jonathan_franzen_came_to_town For the dinner in honor of the Great American Novelist the guest list is made up months in advance. Nobody asks whether the visiting writer wants a dinner. Nobody considers the possibility that giving a lecture on a full stomach and after a glass or two of wine might be difficult. The dinner is not about what the writer wants; it's about what we want. And we want to meet the writer. Are we highbrow sycophants competing for the chance to say forever after that we had dinner with the Great American Novelist? Or are we faithful readers grateful to hear more from a writer we admire? When Jonathan Franzen came to Kenyon College, I was hoping we'd be the latter.

The denizens of a small liberal arts college have a twitchy, uneasy relationship to fame. Those who once hoped to be literary stars themselves will often take a defiantly unimpressed stance. Having somehow been tapped to be Jonathan Franzen's host, I bent over backward to invite a certain English professor to the dinner, seating him next to the guest of honor, only to learn later that he was "not a fan." Bringing in a writer you admire is very much like bringing a new boyfriend home to meet the family. While you hope that they like him, and vice versa, you are resigned to being embarrassed.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/22/when_jonathan_franzen_came_to_town/feed/ 31 Is it time to kill the liberal arts degree? http://www.salon.com/2011/06/19/time_to_kill_liberal_arts/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/19/time_to_kill_liberal_arts/#comments Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2011/06/19/time_to_kill_liberal_arts Every year or two, my husband, an academic advisor at a prestigious Midwestern university, gets a call from a student's parent. Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so's son is a sophomore now and still insistent on majoring in film studies, anthropology, Southeast Asian comparative literature or, god forbid … English. These dalliances in the humanities were fine and good when little Johnny was a freshman, but isn't it time now that he wake up and start thinking seriously about what, one or two or three years down the line, he's actually going to do?

My husband, loyal first and foremost to his students' intellectual development, and also an unwavering believer in the inherent value of a liberal arts education, tells me about these conversations with an air of indignation. He wonders, "Aren't these parents aware of what they signed their kid up for when they decided to let him come get a liberal arts degree instead of going to welding school?" Also, he says, "The most aimless students are often the last ones you want to force into a career path. I do sort of hate to enable this prolonged adolescence, but I also don't want to aid and abet the miseries of years lost to a misguided professional choice."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/19/time_to_kill_liberal_arts/feed/ 269 Yale criticized for dropping anti-Semitism program http://www.salon.com/2011/06/08/us_yale_anti_semitism_studies_1/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/08/us_yale_anti_semitism_studies_1/#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 17:12:18 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/06/08/us_yale_anti_semitism_studies_1 The Anti-Defamation League is criticizing a decision by Yale University to cancel a program dedicated to the study of anti-Semitism.

The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism was discontinued after a faculty review committee concluded it did not meet the university's standards for research and teaching.

The Anti-Defamation League's national director, Abraham Foxman, says the decision "leaves the impression that the anti-Jewish forces in the world achieved a significant victory."

In comments reported Wednesday by The New Haven Register, Foxman says the university should have tried to rectify any problems rather than closing the program in July after five years.

Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said the university has been a leader in Judaic studies. He says the provost has told faculty he will support working groups studying anti-Semitism.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/08/us_yale_anti_semitism_studies_1/feed/ 26 Cannes: The Talmud scholarship comedy of the year! http://www.salon.com/2011/05/20/footnote/ http://www.salon.com/2011/05/20/footnote/#comments Fri, 20 May 2011 18:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/05/20/footnote CANNES, France -- A comedy set in the Israeli academic world, and within that, in the tiny and rarefied realm of Talmudic scholarship, might sound like the ultimate film-festival niche product. But Sony Pictures Classics has snapped up North American rights for writer-director Joseph Cedar's "Footnote," a wry, imaginative entry in this year's Palme d'Or competition, and they're probably right. Of course Sony is thinking primarily about Jewish audiences in big cities, but Cedar's film is a story about intense professional rivalry and father-son conflict, and you don't have to be Jewish or work in a university to understand that.

Furthermore, "Footnote" has two of the best performances I've seen at the Cannes Film Festival this year: One from Israeli comedian and stage actor Shlomo Bar Aba, making his film debut as aging, bitter philologist Eliezer Shkolnik, and the other from Lior Ashkenazi, perhaps the country's best known screen actor, as his son and rival, Uriel. Both men teach at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but all is not well between them. In the opening scene, as Uriel thanks his father in a loquacious speech accepting his nomination to a prestigious academy, Eliezer can barely listen. He sits, hunched over and frowning, as if suffering from gout, headache and intestinal cramps all at the same time.

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