Told You We Were On A Roll Around Here
May 16th, 2007
This from this morning’s Denver Post:
The attorney for University of Colorado ethnic-studies professor Ward Churchill said Tuesday that the committee reviewing his academic misconduct case has recommended a one-year suspension rather than dismissal.
“We feel any discipline is not warranted, but at least (the committee members are) moving in the right direction,” said Churchill attorney David Lane. “This will make it more difficult for Hank Brown and the regents to fire him.”
I can’t wipe this grin off my face. Three things pop immediately to mind.
1. A one-year suspension is the bare minimum the P&T Committee could have given PROFESSOR Churchill without dismissing the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct’s dipshit report entirely. I never hoped for anything but termination, given that anything less would be smacking several of their colleagues across the face. Oh, yeah, and the entire CU administration. And the local media. And every elected official in the state. Obviously, I don’t think the suspension is warranted, but I submit, the P&T committee couldn’t have done less without being fucking lynched.
Oh, and they will be anyway. Have no fear about that. In fact, the Ballerinas have already posted the list of members.
Hold on to your hats, gentle(wo)men, things are gonna get real ugly around your households in the immediate future. I’m recommending an immediate trip to your local firearm vendor.
2. Whatever’s said or not said in the near future, this is exactly an admission that the aforementioned Standing Committee on Research Misconduct report is out-and-out bullshit. Y’know, just like I’ve been saying it was for the last fucking year. You don’t drop punishment from termination to a single year’s suspension (assumedly paid) on a whim, particularly given the costs involved to the P&T committee’s membership.
As I, Jim Paine, and everyone else have noted, there’s been no pressure on them whatsoever to go easy on Churchill. Sure as hell not from CU administration: hell they solicited the initial charges of academic fraud. Certainly not from CU’s faculty: with very few exceptions, I ain’t seen a more cowardly gaggle of chumps in my lifetime. And not from the local media, that’s for sure: they’ve been consistently arguing Churchill should’ve been shitcanned for his political statements from the get-go.
The only political pressure on the P&T committee has been for termination, and it’s been immense. Stay tuned, because I’ll be tracking the fallout.
3. Lastly, and this is the kicker: this is the final result of due process. This is it. If Hank Brown and the regents go for anything greater than this one-year suspension, there’s no argument it ain’t political. If they fire him, they do so in violation of every principle they’ve been pretending to represent since this scandal began. They expose this neo-Stalinist purge for exactly what it is.
And, of course, there’s no doubt now that they’ll make the big guy a very rich man in the process.
This is my kind of day. I’m buying a bottle of Jim Beam and carjacking a Cadillac. Gonna careen around Boulder with my middle finger up, listening to Steve Earle’s “F the CC.”
May 16th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Looks like there’s gonna be some more cake in Churchill’s future!! I might even bake one for him myself.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Whitmer: “I’m recommending an immediate trip to your local firearm vendor.”
…to buy an express ticket to the state pententiary.
I was not invested in the outcome. I am not surprised at the outcome. When the corruption that gave tenure to this man in the first place is considered, when the giant pyramid of phony-baloney victimology departments at American universities is considered, what about this could surprise anyone?
Whitmer, is there hope for your own “career” now? Did you hitch your tiny wagon to the right horse after all?
May 16th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
You can blame it on political corruption, but as I pointed out above, all the political pressure was aimed the other way. CU’s administration, slobbering scared because of the media pressure, made a dipshit bid to vilify Churchill with trumped up charges, and ended up fucking themselves in the process. It’s that simple.
As I said above, now they’re dead in the water. They can’t fire him without showing their whole ass — and giving him the last nail he needs for the impending lawsuit. Of course, the local media will amp up the pressure again. It’s gonna get real ugly now. The entire staff of every Clearchannel outlet and newspaper in town have been spitting into their greasy little paws for a year now in anticipation of his shitcanning. There’s no way in hell they’ll let go of it. And, of course, there’s still O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin.
It’ll get real ugly, but the due process portion of this is over. And they’re so gorgeously fucked. If they fire him, they admit the witchhunt was political from the get-go, it gets aired out in the national media and Churchill gets rich. If they don’t fire him, the rightwing media they’ve been pandering to goes into a frothing rage, and starts looking for ways to rip them limb from limb.
Oh, and for the fourth or fifth thousandth time: I’m a part-time adjunct. I pick up a class a couple semesters a year on the side because I like teaching. I don’t have an academic career nor much interest in one.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
What-The-F*ck said “when the giant pyramid of phony-baloney victimology departments at American universities is considered, what about this could surprise anyone?”
So much for this all being about Churchill violating academic standards.
This loony proves this was all about politics. This was about purging professors with political viewpoints the right-wingers don’t like from the teaching staff of American universities.
May 16th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Pablo B
Right wing? Looney? Proves that this was all about politcs?
If you were an honest man you’d have a serious burden of proof there.
1. How do you classify me as right wing?
2. How do you diagnose lunacy based on an opinion, which is actually a fairly straightforward conclusion outside the nurturing, insulated hothouse you live in?
3. How does the opinion of one person 1,000 miles from Boulder prove that W.C.’s travails have been all about politics? You think I’m part of a vast conspiracy?
Item #3 in particular calls your reasoning skills into serious question. “Proves.”
May 16th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Hello,
I notice from this newstory (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5905525), that if President Hank Brown does not agree with the recommendation, he can return the report for another review… I would like to find if there is any news that he will return the report?
May 16th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Lu Da,
There hasn’t been any news about CU President Hank Brown’s response yet. He has 15 days to respond to the report. The twists in this whole case are far from over. The leak from the report just makes it more difficult for Brown to fire Churchill. It still could happen.
May 16th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
What-The-F*ck
1) Yea, you aren’t right wing. Riiiiight. You are a neutral specialist in Academic Ethics who has dedicated your life to Academic Ethics issues. The Ward Churchill issue is just one of a multitude of far left, far right, and non-political Academic Ethics issues you have addressed in your lifetime. And you can provide links and documentation of your life-long dedication to Academic Ethics issues. Let’s see them.
2) I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist. I cannot “diagnose lunacy” as you suggest. It was a bald face insult to call you a loony. If you don’t recognize an insult when you are the target of one, you are an idiot. I will replace loony with idiot if the threat of being diagnosed with mental disorders hit too close to home for you. The change from loony to idiot doesn’t change my statement.
3) I do believe that you and Owens and one of the founders of a political action group dedicated to purging liberals from Universities (Hank Brown) all share the same agenda. You “Proved” your agenda today. I agree that my statement was a stretch to include everyone else with your own damning statements. So I will step back from that inclusiveness. It is you and only you that you completely undermined with your statements.
I would be happy to discuss whether or not any of the other major players in this affair have shown their own agendas to remove liberals from CU. Hank Brown? The committee chair? jwpaine? What do you think about these three?
May 17th, 2007 at 1:11 am
And, hey, Lu Da: sorry if I was snippy in my last response to you. You see what kind of knuckleheads we deal with . . .
May 17th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Whitmer:
“And, hey, Lu Da: sorry if I was snippy in my last response to you. You see what kind of knuckleheads we deal with . . . ”
Each other, for starters.
May 17th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Ah, no problem! This situation is very different from any issue of faculty rights I have seen in the past. I understand that many people have very strong positions about this and I only hope that I do not worsen the situation with my ignorant questions!
May 18th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Check out todays Daily Camera:
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/18/churchill-backers-misrepresented-sources-relied-fa/
Embarrassing heh?
May 18th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
How so, that the same illiterate dipshits at the Rocky who spun a dispute about historical interpretation into academic fraud charges to get Churchill shitcanned for his political speech are still fucking illiterate?
Yeah, I’m shocked.
The way I read it, Cheyfitz handed those two idiot fucks their heads.
And it changes nothing about the contents of this post. After two years of this bullshit witchhunt, the most that can be given Churchill is a year’s suspension. At least without openly admitting there never was such a thing as due process. And that it was nothing but a political witchhunt in the first place.
You lost. Time to find someone else you disagree with to purge for actually exercising their right to free speech.
May 18th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Are Thornton and Sturm incompetent? Are they lying?
“That’s just blatant distortion to make their point,” said Russell Thornton, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose book was quoted in defense of Churchill.
University of Oklahoma professor Circes Sturm, who was also quoted, said she has since changed her views on a piece of federal Indian law Churchill is accused of distorting. Churchill was among her sources.
May 18th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Is Cheyfitz? He ain’t friends with Churchill. As I understand, they’ve never even met. And he’s at Cornell, a university with just a tad more prestige than either Circe Sturm or Thornton’s.
This is a matter of historical debate. It’s been going on for some time, often heatedly. There are people on both sides. That’s kind of the point.
May 18th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
After additional quick googling, viewing some sites that mention Cheyfitz, a man I never heard of or thought about before today, etc. —
The Cheyfitz opens one of his books with a quote from “Tarzan of the Apes” by hack writer Edgar Rice Burroughs.
http://books.google.com/books?id=bSnLW238vb8C&dq=eric+cheyfitz&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=NvVPltlRw0&sig=BaCn_194zBlAH1eBHxjCrB7kGzk#PPA3,M1
He over-analyzes it, and finds within the imperialistic and paternal soul of the American nation. I don’t know if he provoked any additional critical thinking using other adventure books by Burroughs, such as the ones with scantily clad women and flying air-boats on the planet Mars — I haven’t looked into it that far. Now, you could say he was just using it as an illustration, and not as evidence. I say it’s used as evidence — a quote by the shallow idiot Burrooghs used as evidence of something big and important. The book was wildly popular? So is porno. Deconstruct some ca. 1900 porno for us, Professor Cheyfitz — get it from the COrnell collections — the assault by capitalism on the naive and tender flesh of the Third World — have a field day. By a single crime, know the nation, and so on.
Then there is the lecture quoted below.
You and I can, and will no doubt, read the article below and see completely different things. What I see is a Marxist and romatic who once agian is over-analyzing the tiniest features of fictional works, and who extends his conclusions to explain public policy and history. He appears to be an extreme example of an ivory-tower, hothouse orchid.
So, in response to your question, I would tend to go with “incompetent,” a particular and special form of incompetence that requires years of preparation to perfect. You probably saw that coming.
Say, another thing, what difference does it make if Thornton, for example, is at UCLA instead of Cornell? I claim that UCLA is better than UC Boulder. I also claim it does not matter.
The lecture:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Sept06/PlantationsLecture.kr.html
‘Natural democracy’ — putting life of planet ahead of profits — is advocated by Professor Eric Cheyfitz
By Krishna Ramanujan
While the West views nature as an entity that should be controlled and dominated and that is in opposition to culture, traditional Native American philosophies view nature as kin, inseparable from humans, to be treated with respect, dignity and unity.
So explained Eric Cheyfitz, the Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters at Cornell, in the 10th annual William H. and Jane Torrence Harder Lecture, hosted by Cornell Plantations, Sept. 6 in Warren Hall.
In a critique of how capitalism separates people from nature, Cheyfitz said, “We are not alive to make a profit but to sustain a decent life for every person on this planet, which means, of course, sustaining a decent life for the planet itself.”
He began by defining Western society’s relationship to nature. “We have acted historically … and with increasing intensity since the second half of the 18th century, as though nature is outside of the human, an object to be mastered.” Within this model, “nature opposes culture.”
Cheyfitz, who is the editor of the 2006 book “The Columbia Guide to American Indian Literatures of the United States Since 1945,” believes that this destructive dynamic is destroying the planet, and that a new paradigm in which humans and nature are inseparable should be taught through the “indigenous ways of knowing the world.”
Cheyfitz referred, for example, to University of New Mexico educator Gregory Cajete’s theory of “natural democracy,” in which “all of nature, not only humans, has rights.” Natural democracy is “kin-based” without distinctions between nature and culture, and humans and animals, said Cheyfitz. In most native languages, he said, animals are referred to only by their specific names, as there are no generic words for animals, suggesting a partnership and respect between humans and animals.
Cheyfitz also analyzed a passage from the Laguna Pueblo writer Leslie Marmon Silko’s acclaimed 1977 novel “Ceremony” that describes how Tayo, a traditional Laguna Indian, and his Westernized cousin, Rocky, react after killing a deer. As Rocky guts the deer, Tayo covers its head with his own jacket “out of respect.” Rocky views the Laguna ceremonies that accompany the gutting — the sprinkling of maize meal on the deer’s nose to feed its spirit — as superstition: “He was embarrassed at what they did.”
Borrowing from Cajete, Cheyfitz pointed out that Rocky’s adoption of Western values makes him “intent on distancing the deer from the community by reducing it to dead matter. … private property,” a commodity.
According to Karl Marx, Cheyfitz said, capitalism focuses on “constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production,” such that only “new” things are valued; as a result, traditions, ceremonies and rituals tend to become less and less important. This, in turn, “alienates nature from man.” But later in his career, Marx pointed out that native ideas could perhaps repair capitalism’s rift between nature and Western culture. For example, the Zapatistas of Mexico published a political manifesto in 1993 that suggested a more collective approach to production that would follow a kin-based model that seeks similar goals to Cajete’s natural democracy and would serve all Mexicans.
Cheyfitz concluded by quoting from a poem by Acoma Pueblo writer Simon Otiz, which calls for a return to “balancing the Earth”:
By working in this manner
for the sake of the land and the people
to be in vital relation
with each other,
we will have life,
and it will continue.
May 18th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Are you really arguing that popular texts shouldn’t be analyzed? You’re an extra-special kind of idiot. (And this is neither here nor there, by the way, but Burroughs has been analyzed at great length by many scholars. Actually, the best stuff I’ve seen comes from Sven Lindqvist and Richard Slotkin, and is about the Martian novels.)
But, to the point: you’re calling Cheyfitz incompetent because you disagree with his historical model. Fine, that’s your right. There are plenty of academics I’ve called morons because I disagree with their historical model. That’s my right. That stuff gets hashed out in academic discourse, sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly. The point is that it’s handled by folks on both sides of an issue arguing their respective interpretations. If you don’t like Cheyfitz’s historical model, spend ten years or so reading up on the subject and publish a book making your case.
Disagreement does not equal academic fraud. The two points Cheyfitz and Sturm/Thornton are debating are longstanding disputes between historians. You can’t get shitcanned solely because you disagree with some other academic’s viewpoint. If that were the case, the entirety of academic/scientific discourse would come to a shuddering halt.
As I’ve said a hundred times before, you’re not arguing about academic misconduct, you’re supporting a position wherein academics would be purged for historical models you don’t like. That’s not a conservative position, that’s a Stalinist position.
May 18th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
If the report in the Denver Post is correct, the P&T committee found that Churchill’s conduct “falls below minimum standards of professional integrity,” with three committee members recommending unpaid suspension and reduction in rank to associate professor while two other members recommended dismissal. The RMN reported that the committee found that Wardo “committed multiple acts of plagiarism, fabrication and falsification.” Only a person in the most advanced stage of buttboyitis would write that “the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct report is out-and-out bullshit.” Oh, that person would be Benji. Get a clue, Benji, every committee that has investigated Wardo has found him and his work lacking. Need documentation? (Benji is big on documentation.) Read the reports, Bozo. I know they may be hard for you to understand–you do inhabit the world of a ethnic studies–but maybe calling 1-800-ABCDEFG would be a good place to start.
Just to keep things straight, I am not “When the.” You did accuse me of that in a previous comment. Just another instance of your minimal analytical skills.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
I’m calling Cheyfitz incompetent for using trash novels as part of a chain of historical evidence. If other people are making wide-ranging analyses of the “meaning” of such work, they are not contributing much to human understanding.
Earlier you wanted me to be impressed by Cheyfitz being at Cornell:
“Also cited by the Cheyfitz group was Angela Gonzales, who, like Cheyfitz, teaches at Cornell.
But Gonzales said the essay Cheyfitz cited does not support Churchill.
Her essay does not say the law established a blood quantum standard to define Indians. Rather, federal officials who administered the law often defined Indians by blood quantum.”
Cheyfitz is beginning to sound like a careless screw-up.
He said this, concerning Sturm: “She’s already printed what she’s printed, and once it’s out there, until she repudiates it in print or revises it, it basically holds.”
For crying out loud. Do you agree with that?
Are these true statments:
1. W.C. has cited authors, including Thornton, who flatly deny that their work says anything close to what W.C. says it does.
2. W.C. has used these citations in support of an enormous claim: accusation of mass murder by intentional infection with disease.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
When the:
I’m interested in this train of thought: what makes a trash novel? Which novels are worth of analysis? I don’t think you’ve done too much research on Cheyfitz, or you’d know that he also teaches in the English department. So what sorts of novels should he be concentrating on? Which canon do you prefer? Also, what of Burroughs have you read?
The reading of Gonzalez is also careless. Either the reporters asked her a junk question or she hasn’t read what Cheyfitz and/or Churchill actually said. Neither said a blood quantum was established of the law. What they’ve both said is exactly what she said, that “federal officials who administered the law often defined Indians by blood quantum,” and that therefore the Dawes act was implemented by blood quantum. That’s a pretty obvious distinction. You’d know that if you’d read either the charges against the Misconduct Committee or any of Churchill’s essays on the subject. Again, there are many people on both sides of this issue.
Lastly, the Thornton cite was to a reprinted speech by the Mandan’s principal lead Four Bears speech which Thornton quoted. One interpretation runs that said speech does support Churchill’s general point that infection was deliberate. Thornton disagrees. Again, this is the debate.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
uisce:
As you will, but the fact remains that that the final recommendation is for a one-year suspension. Hank Brown can’t fire him without violating his own institution’s due process. I’ll post more on that tonight.
Hurts a little bit, don’t it?
May 18th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Another quote from the RMN, below the dashed line.
We have Thornton and Campbell in oppostion to W.C. You are insisting that the opinion of a modern-day Grey Owl be taken over that of two bona fide Native Americans, regarding what they themselves have written, and what they themselves say the writing really means.
Thornton said W.C. just makes things up, didn’t he? That does not sound like an ordinary academic debate at all.
W.C. apparently knows what they wrote better than they know it themselves, and he’s doing his writing for the good of their people. Isn’t that — maybe — somewhat paternal? The 97% Caucasian knows what’s best for them?
——————————————–
The Cheyfitz group also defended Churchill’s claim that a blood quantum standard is part of a federal law governing the counterfeiting of Indian art.
Former Colorado U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who sponsored the act, has said blood quantum is not part of the legislation. The wording of the act contains no reference to blood quantum.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Already addressed. You haven’t read what Churchill or Cheyfitz actually wrote. See above, idiot.
And what evidence do you have that Churchill isn’t who he says he is?
May 18th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
The first thing I saw about Cheyfitz was that he’s in the English department. I found that curious.
I mean, I get it, I think — the idea is that he’s being “interdisciplinary” when he quotes a novel about an ape-man to support a historical analysis of United States foreign policy. I’m not an expert on foreign policy, but even I can see a problem there.
Let’s try a few substitions:
A proper reading of “Tarzan of the Apes” and other novels by Burroughs can tell us much about, uh-
Foreign policy.
Botany.
Anthropology.
Physics.
No, it can’t.
Aren’t there people who do academic, publishable analysis of all sorts of obscure things? You know, like the deeper meaning of old TV commercials for Vegematic and the Popeil Pocket Fisherman. They don’t make these things more important by analyzing them, except to people who care about Vegematics.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Novels can tell us something about prevailing attitudes of a time. They can also tell us what narratives inform the time. Some would argue that’s what novels do. Hell, even neo-con hero Teddy Roosevelt would laugh at the idea that nothing can be gleaned from novels. In fact, as I recall, he even cites a few really bad novels in his four-part historical abomination: The Winning of the West. Novels by hack novelists extraordinaire James Fenimore Cooper and Robert Montgomery Bird, if I’m remembering rightly.
I’m not arguing for Burroughs’ literary worth, and I’ve read a fair amount of his stuff. To be honest, when it comes to what I like in lit, I’m fairly well ensconced in the dead white males even you might approve of, if there were any indication you’d ever read anything off-Google. But I can certainly see how analyzing bad popular novels can be informative.
So, again, what novels are worth studying? Give me some examples. I’m just curious as to your literary taste.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
“They can also tell us what narratives inform the time.”
Hold it right there. Narratives? That inform the time? This is true terminology from the social science brigade. To use the term, and to buy the other things you are saying that the term summarizes, is to accept that people are largely robotic, spoon fed their views by “narratives,” and that one narrative is as good as any another. I’m not buying.
A surprising number of people think for themselves and are skeptical of official stories. Ordinary people like store clerks and truck drivers do it, lots of people. You may not like their conclusions, but that does not mean that they don’t have any conclusions of their own. There are not a handful of narratives, there are millions.
Your own narrative, which we may label “the narratives inform the time,” is one of the techniques that you use to say that there is no such thing as science. I did not respond to the many “Science is a European Imperialist Fraud” quotes you posted earlier. Perhaps I should have. The gist of these quotes was that scientific discoveries were motivated by a desire to conquer and dominate. That’s baloney. The discoveries were largely motivated by curiosity. What percent of societies are the conquistador types — maybe 1%? That’s all it takes.
Maybe the truth is that the times inform the narrative.
There has been another recurring claim here — that scientific discoveries and models are tossed out wholesale every so often, and thus any current model must be bogus. That is not so. Illustration: We go from the physics of Isaac Newton to the physics of Maxwell and later to systems of relativity and quantum mechanics. Newton was not wrong. Maxwell was not wrong. These new systems were added on to what came before, and did not replace them.
Tell me of a scientific field that has been tossed out wholesale in the last 100 years. (Things like phrenology, filling skulls with seeds to get brain sizes, and Nazi racial theories don’t count.) I think if you find any examples, I predict they will come from the social sciences — in areas that are heavy with subjective philosophy and advocacy.
Now, why are you telling me about a “neo-con hero” - does that have something to do with me? If you concluded that TR’s history is an abomination, then I would expect you to also conclude that his methods, such as novel quoting, are unsound.
It’s not up to me to promote particular novels as worthy of analysis. I don’t analyze novels, I read them for entertainment. The point I made was that they are not evidence. This “narrative” thing is an attempt to make fiction into evidence. I say authors speaks for themselves.
What else are we going to sift for narratives? Detective novels? Comic books?
May 18th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
The above post is mine.
May 19th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Touchy, touchy. I didn’t mean anything quite so PoMo as you’re inferring. I only meant that when one reads, say, Faulkner, one can get more than just a neat yarn about farmers and race and stuff — but a glimpse into some of what’s considered important in the larger culture. I.e., the stories that people tell that are considered important, and why they’re important.
I’m a lit guy — I’m not demeaning narratives or calling anyone sheep. I just mean that reading novels can inform historically in the the way that if your were to read the Aeneid, you’d get a glimpse into Rome at the time; or in reading Shakespeare, a glimpse into Elizabethan England; or in reading Sophoclese, a glimpse into the Athenians. (That’s actually rather an anti-PoMo point of view on my part, if you think about it.)
I fail to see how that’s controversial, and would suggest that you might broaden your reading a bit. One thing I’ve noticed from your gang is a profound contempt for literature and the arts. It indicates a kind of anti-intellectualism which seems at the heart of your contempt for the humanities in general.
And detective novels might be a great place to look. If nothing else, I bet you’d get good clue as to what notions of law & order are prevailing at the time.
Besides which, there have been some great crime writers. Hammett. Jim Thompson. Raymond Chandler. James Ellroy. And don’t forget Poe.
May 19th, 2007 at 1:38 am
What is PoMo?
I don’t have a gang. I don’t have contempt for literature and the arts. Contemptible is as contemptible does.
If you read fiction, what you get at best is the author’s opinions about what is important. It has to be pretty old to have any use as a museum of cultural attitudes.
Let me repeat this to myself a few times. Tarzan and foreign policy. Tarzan and foreign policy. Nope.
Maybe you could argue that bad writing is more useful as a record of popualr beliefs than good writing. Bad writers often attempt to offer people’s ownfantasies back to them to sell books, and personally stand for nothing. I’m thinking of penny dreadfuls.
You and Cheyfitz are Lit guys who are going all interdisciplinary on us. You’ve traveled quite far — do you still know what you’re doing?
From the other direction we have jokers from the hard sciences who sometimes advocate things, in areas that they know nothing about. Physicists are well represented here. Remember William Shockley, Mr. Transistor, touring to lecture that whites are really smarter than blacks? Why was that important to him? You don’t have to know physics or genetics to smell a rat there.
May 19th, 2007 at 3:21 am
So if a narrative is old it’s a better record? Help me understand that, because it seems rather idiotic. What’s the cutoff point? Take, for instance, the show 24. Tom Tancredo just referenced that as a justification for the usage of torture in a presidential debate. Mightn’t analysis of 24 be warranted, given the cultural weight it seems to have accrued? Given that if Tancredo is elected it would seem to provide some influence over his foreign policy, and, if nothing else, it’s helping dictate the terms of debate during a presidential election?
Your contempt is there. You refer to literature as something only “for fun.” Is that it? What about Shakespeare, Sophoclese, Milton, Melville, etc. Should they only be read for fun? With an absolutely uncritical eye?
I’m not too interdisciplinary. When I teach, I teach primarily about representations of A. Indians in popular culture — literature, film, etc. How would you propose I teach that? Without providing historical context? Authors become popular or canonical because they strike a chord — either with the general public or academia. Don’t you think investigating what that chord might be could be instructive? It’s worth noting that from the Athenians on, that’s been the approach to discussing literature. And that it has always been considered important to discuss one’s contemporaries.
By the way, the Nuremberg judges would disagree about your assessment of literature’s influence. How’s about Julius Streicher?
Lastly, you talk about good writers and bad writers. I have my own criteria, what’re yours? Name some good writers/novels. I’m interested.
May 19th, 2007 at 4:19 am
“So if a narrative is old it’s a better record? Help me understand that, because it seems rather idiotic. What’s the cutoff point?”
Apples and oranges. Different needs, different available resources.
Ancient fiction can provide a clue or a lead about cultures we know little about compared to our own. The older the period, the fewer the surviving records. Fiction, drama, and legends become a comparatively larger proportion of what survives over time. They are relatively more valuable because they become a larger proportion of the available information.
Recent fiction does not have this status because there are other records, plentiful and superior.
There is not a sharp dividing line, there is a continuum.
Imagine someone 2,000 years from now investigating our society’s history and having very little to go on. Finding a copy of a minor drama about a man hounded by the IRS would be quite a find. “Form 1040? Ford Escort? Look at this- they had tax collection and wheeled vehicles.”
We would not view such a drama as informative because we already know these basics. We have immense amounts of better information from other sources.
“Take, for instance, the show 24. Tom Tancredo just referenced that as a justification for the usage of torture in a presidential debate.”
If that’s true, then Tancredo sounds like an unelectable idiot. Seriously - dead meat on a stick. Examine Tancredo’s head, not “24.”
“Your contempt is there. You refer to literature as something only “for fun.” Is that it? What about Shakespeare, Sophoclese, Milton, Melville, etc. Should they only be read for fun? With an absolutely uncritical eye?”
It’s something *I* read for fun. It is not intrinsically that — others can do as they please. You want me to advocate a suggested reading list. I decline.
Discussions and debates about literature adress ideas put forth, illustrated, proposed by an author. The author is advocating a point of view, his conclusions. The author is not channeling mankind’s collective unconscious. There is also the entertainment value. People read or watch Shakespeare to be entertained.
“I teach primarily about representations of A. Indians in popular culture — literature, film, etc. How would you propose I teach that? Without providing historical context?” No. But, are you using history to explain literature, or literature to explain history? Not to be too repetitive, Tarzan is not a key to understanding American foreign policy.
The phony nature of many Indian portrayals in books, movies, and television is already part of popular culture, and has been for some time. I think you are preaching to the choir. If you have found literature written by a particular historical figure, then that is information about that person.
The problem comes from using fiction to support specific claims about history. Unless you are doing a history of fiction, as you apprently are, it is not evidence for what really happened.
“Lastly, you talk about good writers and bad writers. I have my own criteria, what’re yours? Name some good writers/novels. I’m interested.”
Going off on a tangent there. Perhaps you want a head to head competition in literary critiquing power. I would lose - that is not what I do - so what? Edgar Rice Burroughs is a bad writer. That’s all I’ve claimed.
I recall reading Tarzan as an adolescent and I thought it was bad at the time. I could not suspend disbelief when reading it. It’s been a while, but I recall the description of the frst European weenies encountered — just ridiculous — the perfesser stuck his arms and legs up in the air to play dead, and so on. I got it, they were not jungle survival material — hitting people over the head with these caricatures was supposed to be funny, but it wasn’t. Instead, Rice was funny. The idea that somebody would become superhuman by living in the jungle is silly. The writing was clumsy, amateurish. Compare it to Mark Twain if you want a contrast. Compare it to Shelby Foote.
In fact, what do you think of “The Literary Offenses of Fennimore Cooper?” Did he miss anything?