Golublog: An Anthropology Blog » academia

The Little Affairs of University Life

Alex — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:35:06 +0000

“In the little affairs of university life I am alarmed by those who jet themselves through issues and arguments with a burning moral conviction. The result is nearly always bad: if there is someone else burning with an opposed flame, then nothing gets done; alternatively decisions are taken in the white heat of moral virtue, and no-one has thought out how the work is to be done or what will be the consequences. It is better to follow out the cumbersome, tedious, and sometimes devious rituals of compromise.” — F.G. Bailey, Strategems and Spoils

IHE new round up

Alex — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:20:43 +0000

Some pieces to be reused in teaching, etc.

In the “I always thought this would make a good study oh hey somebody’s already done it”: “More diversity in view books than the colleges they represent”:http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/02/viewbooks (quipped one student: its all hot chicks and minorities)

Also, a new study on “relationship violence among undergrads”:http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/08/violence. Good to think about the next time I teach violence.

Carnegie report on the doctorate

Alex — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:08:46 +0000

A helpful report on the state of the art on the doctorate from the Carnegie foundation. The book is available from Josey Bass but “the condensed version”:http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/dynamic/publications/elibrary_pdf_678.pdf is available as well.

Callon bibliography

Alex — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:00:24 +0000

In case you were wondering where to find citations for the work of Michel Callon, there are pretty extensive lists “here”:http://www.csi.ensmp.fr/Perso/Callon/ and “here”:http://www.csi.ensmp.fr/index.php?page=PChercheurs&lang=&IdM=2

Morning education links

Alex — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:05:19 +0000

An interesting point of view on ‘SLOs’ by “Gerald Graff at Inside Higher Ed”:http://insidehighered.com/views/2008/02/21/graff

Oh and one more thing: “Thomas Popkewitch”:http://www.education.wisc.edu/ci/faculty/details.asp?id=popkewitz — interesting author on educational issues.

Trope o’ the day

Alex — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:25:22 +0000

“Passion gap”:http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/07/grad — keeping grad students’ eyes on the prize: the joy of research.

European Group for Organization Studies

Alex — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:24:57 +0000

The European Group for Organization Studies (aka ‘EGOS’) has a “website”:http://www.egosnet.org/ and publishes the journal “Organization Studies”:http://oss.sagepub.com — there is a “free issue”:http://oss.sagepub.com/content/vol27/issue12/ available. Interesting stuff.

Would it matter if everything Foucault said was wrong?

Alex — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:03:35 +0000

There is a nice “TLS piece on the new translation of Madness and Civilization”:http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25347-2626687,00.html. It spends a lot of time dissing Foucault’s scholarship, which is sort of interesting if you read Foucault for the ‘theory’ and have been going along assuming that it wouldn’t matter if “everything Foucault said was wrong”:http://www.springerlink.com/content/nh4t51v6u2681102/.

Academic life is a mad hazard

Alex — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:26:56 +0000

When I was a graduate student one of the other graduate students had stuck the following quote from Max Weber on the door of their office in big black letters:

Academic life is a mad hazard. If the young scholar asks for my advice the responsibility of encouraging him can hardly be borne. Do you in all conscience believe that you can stand seeing mediocrity after mediocrity, year after year, climb beyond you, without becoming embittered and without coming to grief?

But recently I looked up the full, unexpurgated version, and it reads quite a bit differently:

Hence academic life is a mad hazard. If the young scholar asks for my advice with regard to habilitation, the responsibility of encouraging him can hardly be borne. If he is a Jew, of course one says, _give up any hope_. But one must ask every other man: Do you in all conscience believe that you can stand seeing mediocrity after mediocrity, year after year, climb beyond you, without becoming embittered and without coming to grief? Naturally, one always receives the answer: ‘Of course, I live only for my “calling.”‘ Yet, I have found that only a few persons could endure this situation without coming to grief. This much I deem necessary to say about the external conditions of the academic man’s vocation. But I believe that actually you wish to hear of something else, namely, of the inward calling for science…

It’s sort of a telling difference, don’t you think?

A Durkheimian in the panopticon

Alex — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:47:19 +0000

“Philip Smith”:http://www.yale.edu/sociology/faculty/pages/smith/

…

Oh sorry… that should be a Dukheimian _studying_ the panopticon!