[David Mason]

Just a quick note. There has often been debate on the Sphere about liberalism on college campuses--academic freedom and other issues--and I thought I would recommend a book I've been reading: What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts? by Michael Berube. The author is a liberal college professor who has reasonable things to say about the problems we have in our arguments on and about college campuses. I'm not quite through the book yet, but I think Sphereans of any political persuasion can find a reasonable and reasoning voice here. Berube does a good job of narrating the difficult balancing acts professors often perform in the classroom.

Dave



[This message has been edited by David Mason (edited October 24, 2006).]

[Mark Allinson]

Thanks for that, Dave, I will try and get hold of a copy.

I really only have one problem with the current academy (in Oz at least), and that is the virtual extinction of literary studies.

Poems, plays and novels, while they do still figure in "literature" courses, are no longer read as literary works, but as encoded persuasions of the patriarchy, which are urgently in need of de-coding and dismantling.

The total dismissal of all aesthetic value means that 90% of what is valuable in literature has been flushed away, in order that the bare bones of the oppressor's persuasion can be revealed.

Of course politics are implicit in literary texts - no one would argue with that. But to make that one element THE one and only element of interest, is simply ridiculous.

"Literature" in Oz is now mostly a term used by social engineers posing as tutors, and actually designates courses in politics or social studies.

I'll try and catch up with the book, or reviews and get back.



[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited October 24, 2006).]

[R. S. Gwynn]

Not at Lamar University, Mark.

[David Mason]

And not at Colorado College.

[Michael Cantor]

Oh God, you've both hit the hyper-rant switch. Now watch what happens.

[Tim Murphy]

I've read at Lamar and Colorado College, and I've little doubt one can earn a better English degree there, or at Moorhead State, than you can at Yale. Dave, you know how upset Tony became over what overcame Georgetown.

[Mark Allinson]

Sorry for the rant-delay, Michael - I was in town for the weekly shopping expedition.

Well, that is great news, about those institutions still teaching literature as literature.

I am heartened, and if I wasn't so old I might be tempted to re-locate.

Perhaps they still have courses on 17th C. literature stateside?

We do still have them here, but the literature is just a tool used to attack the vileness of the patriarchy of the day.

I would love to know why this country (Oz) has been so entirely polluted with this anti-aesthetic, political approach to literature.

As I have said before - it is not specifically left-wing propaganda I have a problem with - I am averse to peddling any ideological propaganda.

Of couse, the response always comes back: "So you think there is no political implication in traditional literature". To which I answer: "Of course there is, but why is that THE ONLY aspect of texts that interests you."

There has always been a strong anti-authoritarian element in Oz culture - hatred of the Old Country and Tradition in general; we are, of course, most of us descended from criminal stock, since the country began as a penal settlement. So I suppose this is a factor in this wide-spread desire to destroy the literature associated with the tradition.

I recall a conversation I had with a senior lecturer at Monash university some years ago which might give you a glimpse of "the terror" in the current situation: we were discussing a poem, and I said: "isn't that a beautiful expression." At this he rose, walked to the open door and closed it. And he was not being ironic, but careful, because I had used the "b" word out loud, and it had been banned.

[Janet Kenny]

Originally posted by Mark Allinson:


There has always been a strong anti-authoritarian element in Oz culture - hatred of the Old Country and Tradition in general; we are, of course, most of us descended from criminal stock, since the country began as a penal settlement. So I suppose this is a factor in this wide-spread desire to destroy the literature associated with the tradition.

Mark, You may have missed the fact that the Brits syphoned their convicts to Australia after it was no longer possible to send them to America as they had done in the past. We're all brothers and sisters under the skin.
British convicts shipped to American Colonies
In 1769 Dr. Johnson, speaking of Americans, said to a friend, “Sir, they are a race of convicts and ought to be content with anything we may allow them short of hanging.”


Well speak for yourself anyway, I'm a smug Kiwi. A friend of mine did a lingering degree in Italian pastoral poetry at Auckland University. They gave her her own room in which to study.

I think it has something to do with the nature of the Irish tradition and their deprivations at the hands of the English.
Janet



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited October 24, 2006).]

[Mark Allinson]

Ah, yes, the Irish connection!

I think you are right, Janet.

I know a few academics with Irish backgrounds who are VERY keen to deconstruct anything produced by "the Great Brutish Empire", as Joyce called it.

[David Landrum]

Academic discourse varies. Here at the small college where I take, we still do British and American survey, and generally take a formalistic, new critical approach to literature, though we do bring in elements of post-structual, feminist, and other approaches to literature. I think eclecticism in criticism--or "spoiling the Egyptians" as someone has put it--is the best way to approach literature.

Another topic: There is much talk about our universtiies as sites of left-wing propagandizing. Charges that leftist professors use their classrooms to advance their own political and social views are meant with stunned disclaimers from left-wingers who claim they do no such thing.

My graduate school experience was quite different from these disclaimers. In the late seventies and early eighties at Purdue University (which is even a little conservative), it was assumed that every student in the English Department was leftist and also was an atheist or agnostic. My professors incessantly ridiculed Regan, the Republicans, and religion (nice aliteration). Classes often turned into comedy routines against any of those three subjects and the gloom and despair that came with Regan's election and re-election were palpable. Students who were believers of any sort, or Republicans, or actually liked Regan kept their mouths shut.

Now, I really don't think those professors knew they were creating an intimidating atmosphere. They simply assumed that if a student enrolled in their classes they must share their liberal values. So they would go into rants or sessions of ridicule. And, of course, the students in class who did share thier beliefs would happily join in, and this would confirm their belief that the class must be with them and would increase the level of sarcasm and celebration of leftism.

Those of us who were conservative or Christians (or Muslims) kept quiet for fear of retaliation if we should happen to object to what our professors said. Probably we would not have been retaliated against, but in grad school you cannot take the risk. So we clammed up and silently stewed as we heard leaders we admired and our religion subjected to mockery and sarcasm.

I think this sort of thing happens a lot today and professors who do it don't really know they are being unfair and exclusive.