Who killed literature? NP but profs, in the classroom, with candlesticks and test

[alice wellintown]

Again, I think this is attacking the victim, in this case the senior
professors, the overworked and underpaid teachers.

There is burn out, mediocriity, and failure in every profession. In
medical doctoring, and in nursing, and in teaching. A Professor won't
cut off the wrong leg or remove a perfectly fucntioning organ, or
neglect a soldier who is rotting in his own waste.

She might turn preacher from the pulpit, wave her flag, shoot from the
hip,  spread shit she scrapes from her  shoes, but she won't kill a
defenseless paitent.

So what is the urgency? Why must we be rid of these professors who
need support and need to get back in the groove? Why can't we improve
teaching by adding more positions?

Money!

Neverhteless, we should not put up with bad teaching.

But the solution is not to get rid of the old and the overworked and underpaid.

The solution is not robots or diploma factories or adjuncts who work
without benefits of decent wages.

The solution is more and better professors and teachers. To attract
them we need to hire more, ot fire more.

We are spending too little on education. Sure tuition costs are higher
than junkies on Frifay Night, but what is driving these higher tuition
costs? Is it college professor and teacher salaries? Too much dead
wood? To many old farts who won't move to Miamia, get cancer and die?

No, Man, we need more money and we need to invest inmore teachers,
new, young and...experienced, yes older teachers too.

For the record, I never learned anything from a a school. I taught
myself eveything know, but I'm not a good model. Now I go to MIT and
take courses free; this is great because I could care less about the
credits, all I need is a good course syllabus.

So I think there are wonderful things happening that will inject new
life in Literature and the Humanities, but it's not wise to Balkanize,
old and new turks kind of stuff. I won't do. It won't do at all.

As B/Tuttle sez in Brazil, "We're all in it together, Brother."

On 7/17/13, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es> wrote:
> "That said, the notion that the victims of the assault on
> the Humanities... are to blame for the decline in any and all fields of
> study is absurd."
>
> Yes it is, glad I never said it. However, crap univeristy teaching in the
> Humanities (I'm referring more to teaching in English studies - as was
> Siegel) makes it an easy target for those set on taking it out. Maybe Alice
> only had fine Profs at whatever Candlebrow U she attended, lucky gal, but I
> have had less enviable experiences. I have seen more than one professor come
> in and shoot from the hip the whole semester and others who let their
> politics get in the way of good teaching. The fact is that some teachers
> have made Lit dept.s easy targets. Oh, it is these same lack lustre profs
> who refuse to retire and leave room for the next generation to step in. This
> is not "blaming the vicitm", it's cleaning up your own backyard. Get to the
> business of triage or the vultures will finish off the moribund.
>
> And Al, maybe we should consider the Big Men and Women of belles lettres (or
> is it the heads that are big?) before we put on the war paint. We too must
> re-evaluate our values and question our questions.
>
> ciao
> mc
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2013 7:37 PM
> Subject: Re: Who killed literature? NP but profs, in the classroom, with
> candlesticks and test
>
>
> I can only speak about the USA here.
>
> I doubt that the WSJ and their ilk, who are certainly hell bent on
> de-unionizing education and making it, as it has science and technic,
> an arm of the corporate state, will succeed in killing the Humantires
> or Literature. Of course, I may be wrong. Who could imagine that they
> would kill science and math and make it an arm of war and consumer
> oppression. Some Little men of Science still refuse to this and think
> they are doing science.
>
> In any event, we do, in the USA, live not in 1984 but in a Brave New
> World. Students of that novel, and of the Play from which it takes its
> name (The Tempest)know that the cultural forces that gave rise to the
> Humanites and to the study of Literature and to the Literary forms,
> such as the novel, are huge and complex, they are, as the forces of
> Science and Math once were, not secular and certainly not divorced
> from magic and the spiritual forces...and can be traced back to the
> Ancient Worlds, to the Greeks and to Chinese and Egyptian and so
> forth...highly developed cultures in America and Africa etc... and
> through the so called FDark Ages and the Printing Press that, as
> Hugo's (Hunchback) Deacon sez, killed the Cathedrals.
>
> That, says the Deacon of Notre Dame, as he points to a book, will kill
> this (the Cathedral).
>
> Any student of P must know what Adams was talking about when he wrote
> his books on US History, Education, and the Cathedrals of Europe, must
> surely understand the logocentric themes, of colonialism, of the
> European Companies that, as we learn in that Play that gave the tile,
> _The Tempest_ , treat Others as Calibans, use greater
> Magic/Science-Technic to subdue them, and, having run out of Frontier,
> have turned their attention to the spaces of our minds. And we, as in
> Brave New World, are complicit, not victims, but participants.
>
>
> That said, the notion that the victims of the assault on the
> Humanities, an attack that seeks to divide and conquer by focusing its
> brutal charge at teachers of Humanties, and also on Educators
> generally, are to blame for the decline in any and all fields of study
> is absurd.
>
> Who needs any of this? DId Bill Gates or Mike Bloomberg or Steve Jobs
> need any of this?
>
> Will the study of Literature help raise the standard of living of the
> average American? no. It will hurt their chances. The Humanites may
> construct clever arguments but its all sophistry and self-serving
> rhetoric.
>
> Today, as Carl Sandburg sez, I worship the hammer.
>
> Itz Ok to be Luddite. Ask anyone who knows what the teachers are only
> now beginning to understand" Science-Technic is an arm of the
> Corporate state and they will replace you with a robot.
>
> On 7/14/13, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es> wrote:
>> WSJ trying to kill the Humanities (LIT., notice he doesnt say out with
>> hist
>> or philosophy) Still trying to get rid of the poets. this guy... What a
>> slug.
>>
>> That said, the HUmanities are in danger, we (those of us in the Hum or
>> trying to get in) should think about that with every paper we write every
>> conference we attend. This time of crisis shall pass but what will remain
>> of
>> the Humanities? Will we write of our own demise even as we orchestrate it?
>>
>> mc
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2013 1:09 AM
>> Subject: Who killed literature? NP but profs, in the classroom, with
>> candlesticks and test
>>
>>
>>
>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323823004578595803296798048.html
>>