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Mark Fisher

Risk and Ethics in Public Scholarship | Inside Higher Ed - 1 views

www.insidehighered.com/...-and-ethics-public-scholarship

scholarship public PSD

shared by Mark Fisher on 16 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Doing academia in public view is both a powerful tool and a potentially powerful weapon.
  • There is no buffer in public writing.
  • And for many readers the allure of attacking the writer instead of the work is too seductive to deny. That can be a shock when you are accustomed to the civil discourse, no matter how thin or banal, that governs academic critique.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • While universities are quick to promote public scholarship they are loath to extend their responsibility to include refereeing the behavior of academics in the public sphere.
  • As my friend discovered, there is no ethic guiding public scholarship
  • The inequalities women and minorities face in traditional academic models only exacerbates the potential risks of contributing to public scholarship.
  • That is potentially devastating to those who would benefit most from the kind of visibility, credibility, and network building that public scholarship can provide.
  • Mark Fisher on 16 Jan 14
     
    Description of some of the issues we need to address under the idea of a 'safe space'. Contrast between academia and publicness that is relevant to the normative policies of PSD 
André de Avillez

Look Who Nick Kristof's Saving Now | Corey Robin - 1 views

coreyrobin.com/...k-who-nick-kristofs-saving-now

shared by André de Avillez on 20 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • You begin to get a clue of what he’s really talking about, then, by noticing two of the people he approvingly cites and quotes in his critique of academia: Anne-Marie Slaughter and Jill Lepore.
  • The problem here is not that scholars don’t aspire to write for The New Yorker. It’s that it’s a rather selective place
  • He only reads The New Yorker, and then complains that everyone doesn’t write for The New Yorker
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Nor does he see the gatekeepers—even in our new age of blogs and little magazines—that prevent supply from meeting demand.
  • The problem here isn’t that typically American conceit of “culture” v. nonconformist rebel. It’s the very material pressures and constraints young academics face, long before tenure. It’s the job market.  It’s the rise of adjuncts. It’s neoliberalism.
  • I had to smile at Kristof’s nod to publish or perish. Most working academics would give anything to be confronted with that dilemma. The vast majority can’t even think of publishing; they’re too busy teaching four, five, courses a semester
  • André de Avillez on 20 Feb 14
     
    A reply to Nicholas Kristof
André de Avillez

Unionize College Football | Jacobin - 0 views

www.jacobinmag.com/...-college-football-northwestern

public academia labor

shared by André de Avillez on 28 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The unionization campaign at Northwestern is no doubt exciting. That any group of people in their late-teens and early-twenties, football players or otherwise, thought to address their workplace grievances through organizing is, in this rabidly anti-union place and time, nothing short of remarkable. If they succeed (which is still far from certain), their victory could reverberate across the intercollegiate athletic world, transforming the NCAA in the process. And, not inconsequentially, they could pave the road for organizing advances by graduate students, medical residents, and many others who work for the same institution that bestows their degrees or credentials.
  • André de Avillez on 28 Feb 14
     
    Piece on the unionization efforts by Northwestern University's football team.
André de Avillez

The Work of Public Work | Jacobin - 2 views

www.jacobinmag.com/...the-work-of-public-work

DigitalScholarlyCommunication public PublicPhilosophy

shared by André de Avillez on 25 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • At the same time, I want to hold Robin accountable to his desire for a “materialist analysis of the relationship between politics, economics, and culture.”
  • I think he wrongly characterizes the conditions under which many of these young academics are writing
  • The risk of being a public intellectual, he posits, comes from the fact that these scholars are taking time away from their academic writing
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  • The workload of academics has increased exponentially in recent years, as has been well-documented
  • I have found that writing for popular audiences is not solely an internal passion, but has actually become an external demand of young scholars, another metric by which their job application or tenure-file is evaluated.
  • The problem is that Robin goes on to romanticize the lives of young scholar-writers, saying that their work arises from intrinsic desires, whose realization is made possible by new technology:
  • Young scholars are compelled to transform themselves into academic entrepreneurs, creating a brand that they promote through their blogs, tweets, and online profiles.
  • The swelling workloads of academics are indicative of the micropolitics of neoliberalism
  • The mantra of “publishing early and often” has intensified, especially in a tight job market. As tenured horizons grow grimmer, new scholars must do anything they can to stand out above a crowd of over-achievers. Publish early, publish often — and now, publish online.
  • Consider the website Academia.edu
  • But the site also exemplifies the quantification of the productive self, with each profile displaying the number of views, article downloads, and followers for each academic.
  • It’s no wonder that I’ve also seen a growing number of colleagues (myself included) add a “Public Scholarship” section to their CVs
  • The labor of public intellectualism is more than a political project, or even a charitable effort of self-expression — it’s another manifestation of exploitation
  • As a result, young academics trying to keep up with new media are writing, reading blogs and engaging in Twitter wars during lunch breaks, between teaching commitments, and well into the night.
  • To meet the demands of academic capitalism, there’s now even less of a chance of ever clocking out.
  • Yes, let us praise the young writers whose voices are being seen and heard across the blogosphere, and luxuriate in the possibilities of transcending the borders of the Ivory Tower. But let us not forget that writing, even on the Internet, and even for the “public good,” is still work. And whenever we’re encouraged to do more work, we should be a bit wary.
  • André de Avillez on 25 Feb 14
     
    A response to Corey Robin's response to Kristof's article, raising troubling concerns regarding the commodification of public scholarship.  Seems worth amplifying, in conjunction with the critiques of Kristof's piece or on its own.
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