A P.S. to Yesterday’s Debate

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Clarissa

March 10, 2016

I applied for a research grant at my university a few years ago. The application was rejected by my fellow professors in the Humanities with the comment that I will never forget.

“It is unclear why we should care about and spend money on studying the literary output of another country,” professors wrote.

This was before our budget problems and at a time when our research money was actually running at a surplus. Not a single administrator was on that committee and not a single professor from outside our Humanities fields. I was shocked by this militant parochialism then but I no longer am.

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11 responses to “A P.S. to Yesterday’s Debate”

anon

March 10, 2016

Whaaa?! I can imagine someone outside of the humanities saying this since sadly many of us scientists specialize early and don’t really think about these subjects… but within the humanities? mind blown

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David Gendron

March 10, 2016

What a bunch of nationalist bigots!

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Shakti

March 10, 2016

Good thing you’re not on grant committees and you do not hold grudges. :p

How allergic are people to cross disciplinary thinking anyways?

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cliff arroyo

March 10, 2016

“It is unclear why we should care about and spend money on studying the literary output of another country”

You could answer “because they have literary output while this country seems to be lagging”

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Shakti

March 10, 2016

OT: Any Italian readers of this blog planning to read In Other Words ? Lahiri wrote the book in Italian about learning to write in Italian and had someone else provide a page by page translation into English. I’m not sure how much I’d miss in this work since I don’t speak Italian.

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1. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
  
  March 11, 2016
  
  It’s a great book in English as well
  
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Dreidel

March 11, 2016

How about a P.S. to tonight’s Republican Debate on CNN that this website didn’t bother to monitor?

It was so polite and civil that I thought Hil and Bern had snuck on stage and were performing multiple roles in drag or disguise. Every single Republican candidate expressed his views politely and presidentially — and any one of them could easily beat the Democrat’s Granny Sea Hag or Grandpa Grumpy Troskyist.

It will be interesting to see if any Repubs besides Trump and Cruz survive to carry on the good fight beyond the winner-take-all Republican primaries on 15 March, and if Bernie takes economic-basket-case midwestern states like Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri on that same day, and keeps Hillary rocking on her heels all the way to the Democratic Presidential Convention 25-28 July — a week after the Republicans will already have selected the next American President.

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1. Clarissa
  
  March 11, 2016
  
  I was so disappointed with the Univision debate that it soured me on debates altogether.
  
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2. Shakti
  
  March 11, 2016
  
  Every single Republican candidate expressed his views politely and presidentially — and any one of them could easily beat the Democrat’s Granny Sea Hag or Grandpa Grumpy Troskyist.
  “Every single Republican candidate demonstrated that they passed kindergarten five minutes ago.” See, unlike you, I’m not grading on a curve so I’m not going to hand out gold star stickers, cookies or my vote for this stupendous accomplishment.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 11, 2016
    
    Say, did they manage to stand upright and avoid drooling? Because if so, cookies might actually be in order. 🙂
    
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Anonymous

March 11, 2016

A comment like this is only a few steps away from the argument “why study the literature of ANY country?” Then the next step: let’s get rid of foreign language and English departments but keep a few language instructors and composition instructors for general education courses. And let’s make sure our students major in business, nursing, education, etc., so they can get a job when they graduate. Because what’s the use of a degree in a humanities field, anyway? These silly humanities professors on this committee are only hurting themselves and their own disciplines with the decision they made, but unfortunately, they aren’t able to see it.

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