The Cranky Professor: February 2005 Archives

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February 28, 2005

New Stadium in Washington, D.C.

At least they're spared a Calatrava. Atlanta is busy building what they're referring to in public as "Georgia's Unique Postcard." Like the unique postcard in Milwaukee. Or the unique postcard in Dallas. Or the unique postcard in . . . . You get the idea. Maybe the stadium in DC, horrifically over budget and inefficient as it undoubtedly will be, can be a good place to watch baseball. It could happen.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:39 PM

What I'm Reading

Well, it's time to get to work. I have a pile of similar things to read -- in this case, re-read. William J. Diebold, Word and Image: An Introduction to Early Medieval Art. I liked it pretty well the first time through, but haven't used it yet with a class. I'm thinking about that for next year.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:37 AM

February 27, 2005

Censorship Withdrawn - the Terri Schiavo Advertisement

Read this entry if you haven't been convinced of the power of reader demands over media decisions -- or that the underlying bias of the media extends as far as the advertising department. See what the newspaper wanted to cut from the advertisement. Notice that they've backed down.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:13 AM

Bill Gates + National Governor's Association = Ray of Hope

I'm a pessimist about the possibility of systematic reform in American lower education, but the combination of Bill Gates and the governors might have some effect. It has little to do with the amount of money he's willing to spend (read through these charts* if you think American education is merely underfunded) but the fact that his money is a carrot outside their usual control. The governors, too, are mainly outsiders (though sometimes beholden to teacher organizations). We can hope.

*via Joanne Jacobs

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:55 AM

February 26, 2005

Ruscha at the National Gallery

Run, quick, click - I don't know how long the photo gallery hosted by the Washington Post will last (the article's not bad, either, but be sure to view the photo gallery). There's a big Ed Ruscha show at the National Gallery in Washington through May 30th.

Like most overly big shows by a single artist you'll see too much of him and get bored or annoyed (annoyed is likely with Ruscha, who can be very arch), but he's worth coming back to when you calm down. I bet that you saw the book Guacamole Airlines on the remainder tables of big book stores all through the 80s - it used to be everywhere. Sadly, there's no cover art at Amazon. Here're some pictures from the Getty, but not the best examples. Here's a nice one from the University of Kentucky collection -- think of the sky instead filled with cherubs and ribbons framing a Virgin Immaculate and you'll see some what he's getting at. OH, my. If you're getting interested, this is what you want, your tax dollars at work. It's too much, but in a splendid way, and with great comparisons.

Why am I so enthusiastic? Two reasons, really.

First and most personally, Ruscha showed me that serious art could be funny. When I was 17 I was walking through a major museum and saw "Babycakes, Suspended" (there's an example of the Babycakes series in the Post slide show!). I had never laughed in a museum before (this was 1979, you realize - art WAS more solemn, then). The work (perhaps a silkscreen?) showed a little packet of blue squares tied up in a pink ribbon, the top blue square labelled "Babycake". The packet cast a shadow. The title, "Babycakes, suspended." You probably had to be there, and had to have had a whole summer walking through great museums with a capital G and M. So, now I'm an art historian; though I take art deadly seriously, I'm seldom solemn about it.

Second, and more professionally, Ruscha appeals to my own research interests - I work on the fragile membrane between art and explanation, especially on art objects that are accompanied by a written explanation - an inscription. I stress an explanation because the fun part is working out the extent to whcih the inscription is true or false, helpful or obfuscatory, contemporary or added by a later and ill-informed hand. Many of Ruscha's two-dimensional works play with this. He can paint a shadow that would shut up a philistine (you know, the "my 6 year old could do that" type) or he can paint a shadow that a 6 year old could do -- it depends on what he's aiming at.

Maybe I need to consider a trip to Washington before June. I saw the Modigliani show at the Philips when it was at the Albright-Knox in Buffalo, which cuts into my attempt to justify a trip. If you haven't seen it and don't mind a big dose of depression it's worthwhile, too.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:31 PM

Repeat Offender

Hmmmm - think they're watching him closely?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:35 PM

History Carnival

I'm not sure these things are really of much use -- "history" is not a very helpful category*, in some ways -- but here's a link to this month's History Carnival. The host of next month's will be my long-time friend and one-time co-student, Another Damned Medievalist.

*want to see why I don't think "history" is a helpful category? Read the comments.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:08 PM

New St. Peter's on Display in Washington

Neat, neat, neat. The wooden model for the dome of New St. Peter's* is on display at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington through late May. They have a show up called Creating St. Peter's: Architectural Treasures of the Vatican If you like "building of..." or "making of..." kind of things, this looks great. I love things like that.

The model is 18 feet tall and was meant to be a serious guide for the builders, not just a presentation piece to persuade a client (though it was to do that, too). The show also has one of the capstans used in raising the obelisk in the Piazza.

The part of the show I'd most like to see (I've seen the model - it's usually on display in the Basilica) is about illuminating the Basilica with candles -- a sight now lost in the 21st century. Think for a moment how much it must have cost to burn enough candles to light New St. Peter's for a long service? I've read the figure somewhere -- I think in an account of the canonization process during the 19th century. Back in those days the organization sponsoring the Cause was responsible for the lighting -- is something similarly true of the modern extravaganzas in the Piazza? Ahah - I might have read it here - go to the entry on beatification and canonization in the Catholic Encyclopedia and scroll to the bottom.

To decoration of the Basilica, lights, architectural designs, labour, and superintendence -- Lire 152,840.58
Procession, Pontifical Mass, preparation of altars in Basilica -- 8,114.58
Cost of gifts presented to Holy Father -- 1,438.87
Hangings, Sacred Vestments, etc. -- 12,990.60
Recompense for services and money loaned -- 3,525.07
To the Vatican Chapter as perquisites for decorations and candles -- 18,000.00
Propine and Competenza -- 16,936.00
Incidental and unforeseen expenses -- 4,468.40
Total -- 221,849.10 or (taking the lira equivalent to $.193 in 1913 United States money) $42,816.87.

I picked this up from a story in the Washington Post.

*Why "New" St. Peter's? Because it's only 500 years old. St. Peter's, commonly referred to by modernists as "Old St Peter's," was completed in about 340 and served until cumulative earthquake damage made the building irreparable ("falling into ruin" in the Post story is an exaggeration -- it wasn't a ruin, but there was a reasonable fear of collapse). If you want to see what St. Peter's looked like, your best bet is St. Paul's Outside the Walls. If you want to see what it looked like but on a smaller scale, go see Sta. Prassede up by Sta. Maria Maggiore. I've seen Sta. Prassede by candlelight - Easter Vigil of 2003.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:59 AM

Terri Schiavo

The coverage gets worse - it is amazing to read the headlines. A 3-week stay against removing the feeding is being presented as authorization TO remove the feeding tube in many of the headlines (I have google.news as my homepage lately - CNN has beenn loading too slowly for my taste). ABC headline, for instance, "Man Cleared to Remove Wife's Feeding Tube." The abuse of language is depressing.

For continuing coverage, see the roundup at Blogs for Terri. Commentary on the headline writing here

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:47 AM

February 25, 2005

Those Coptic Manuscripts

The really important thing about the big Coptic manuscript find last week? They were found in situ by archaeologists, not bought on the stolen antiquities market. See Dr. Jim Davila's Paleojudaica for more.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:50 PM

MMMMmmmm, Amazon...and What I'm Reading

An Amazon box last night. I assure you that clicking on the links benefits me in no way - this is a not-for-gain enterprise of mine. Here's what I got:
Some light Lenten reading from St. Thomas More:
Four Last Things: The Supplication of Souls: A Dialogue on Conscience
The Sadness of Christ - written in the Tower. I have a particular devotion to St. Thomas More - not only is he an interesting character, but I entered the Catholic Church at St. Thomas More parish in Decatur, GA (surely the plainest church in Georgia, but I love it). We had a good print of the Holbein portrait over the door as one left.

A little reading to prep for European Studies 101 in the Fall.
What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem? : Timaeus and Genesis in Counterpoint (Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures) - if it were available in paperback I might use it for class reading. GOSH Pelikan was learnèd. I've read about 20 pages so far.

So Euroleft he's easy to read - two from Paul Ginsborg.
A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943-1988
Italy and Its Discontents: Family, Civil Society, State, 1980-2001
These were two of the best books I read while in Rome in 2003. I left those copies with my sister and had to buy replacements. These are really, really, really good; if you are interested in why Italy is the way she is today you can't do better in English. In fact, you can't do much better in Italian - they've been translated into the language; Ginsborg teaches at Florence, anyway. I keep meaning to find some better biographical information for him - he seems to have led a very interesting life.

An Introduction to the Study of Medieval Latin Versification. The essential reference. I had to use it in French (yep, a book originally published in Stockholm in French about Latin poetry), but I also had to have a copy in English. It's funny, too, if you can imagine such a thing.

Schubert: Winterreise, sung by Brigitte Fassbaender. I don't remember where I read a review of this particular version, but it was wildly positive. I had just heard about 6 of them at a colleague's Winter house concert and had decided you can never own too many versions of the Winterreise.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:47 PM

February 24, 2005

Spam Stats - 10% real comments?

Here are some spam statistics based on my site. I have the advantage of being a moderately experienced blogger who had to restart from scratch (see this tale of woe - start at the bottom). Since I've restarted there have been 90 legitimate comments and 913 spam comments either blocked or forced through moderation by MT-Blacklist. I don't have trackbacks enabled; given what I've read I never will.

I think there's a very good case here for not having comments.

updateSince I posted this statistical tidbit this morning my comment list went from 90 to 173. Wanna guess how many of those are spam? I haven't looked yet, but since it is almost a 100% increase in the nubmer of total comments in under 12 hours I have a feeling that few of my regular readers are there. Further reason to drop comments entirely.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:45 AM

February 23, 2005

Interested in NEW Catholic Colleges?

If you have a strong feeling that people should go to NEW Catholic colleges because they're more likely to be orthodox than old ones, try this one - Southern Catholic College. I'm not at all sure that I agree with the put-your-college-in-an-isolated-location model*, but Dawsonville isn't far from Atlanta.

Read this article about the high level administrators at Southern Catholic. These are people with appropriate professional experience to do their jobs and with good local connections. They look well-financed, and without all the money coming from a single donor.

Their reason for starting the college isn't some quirky view of education or some idea that they will provide the salvation for Catholic education -- they wanted a Catholic college in the Atlanta area and they have the money. The archdiocese of Atlanta has seen an explosion of Catholic schools - both diocesan and independent - and this is the fruit of that growth. There are now at least 6 Catholic high schools in the archdiocese (4 diocesan, 1 Marist, 1 Legionaries of Christ**, 1 independent [though with an interesting relationship to the chancery]). THEN there are all those other Catholics across the South who are severely underserved by Catholic colleges without snow on campus.

*I know, I know - I teach in centrally isolated Geneva, NY. - but I chose to go to college in Houston, myself.
**Pinecrest is up to 10th grade this year, so in 2 years they'll be k-12. They already have 700 or so students. Demography in Atlanta is kinda scary.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:33 PM

Rich Women Feel Pain, Too

But it's still fun to laugh at 'em. I read the Newsweek story (conference, hotel room, free copy - you don't think I'd pay for that stuff, do you?) story. This is a not entirely inappropriate response. Or there's Big Arm Woman's take - just as pointed, and not a bit satirical.

I found the Iowahawk piece via Joanne Jacobs. I have Big Arm Woman's Tightly Wound on my RSS feed reader.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:26 AM

February 22, 2005

Washington's Birthday and Civic Piety

I'm working on a non-medieval project this term for which I'm allowing myself 1 morning a week in the Archives of these Colleges (our archivist blogs about being an archivist at a small college, by the way). I'm reading everything there is to read about the chapel (which, since it's a lovely little example of Gothic Revival and by a big-name architect isn't an entirely off-topic project for me; I promise.).

In pursuit of understanding what they were up to in 1860 I've been reading (and guiltily* transcribing) excerpts from the journal of the president of Hobart College in the late 1850s and the 1860s, Abner Jackson. One of the things I've noted is the annual celebration of Washington's Birthday - let me give you an example:

Tuesday, February 21st, 1860.
Holiday in College after Morning Prayer on account of celebrating Washington’s Birthday. To-morrow being Ash Wednesday, the celebration occurs to-day. A wonderfully beautiful day, so bright and glistening, and so warm. The ground was covered with snow in the morning, but it vanished before night.
Even. Preside at the celebration in Linden Hall. T. J. Rundle read the Farewell Address. E. L. Fitzhugh gave rather a brilliant oration—did very well. Hall crowded, all passed off very well.

Some notes: the holiday in College seems to have been annual (from 1858 until 1861, at least, which is how far I've read), though of course it didn't always conflict with the Church Year; there was always a reading of the Farewell Address and an oration. Hobart is an Episcopal college and in those days had daily prayer.** Linden Hall was an opera house in downtown Geneva which the College rented for special events.

*"guiltily" because I really shouldn't be shilly-shallying around with current events like this when fascinating articles about the burial of Charlemagne have already arrived via Interlibrary Loan. I'm even more guiltily thinking about what could be done with this interesting document (transcribe, post as a blog?), but I must resist the allure of primary documents in a language I understand natively!
**William Smith College, by the way, is not church related. William Smith was himself a Spiritualist and in the Charter for William Smith College it is specified that the young women will not be required to attend any religious services. Hobart men were required until 1967 to attend at least a certain number of chapel services each week.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:46 PM

February 21, 2005

Tales from a BIG Mall

Did you know that Restoration Hardware sold dryer sheets? Yes, dryer sheets. $15 a box.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:14 PM

February 20, 2005

The Silliness of the Drug War and the Media

And here I thought we were over this stuff. Oh, well -- secret tapes hint Bush tried marijuana. Was he dealing? Did he do smack? Bill Clinton, of course, will go down in history as the Man Who Didn't Inhale. And let's not talk about prescription drug use in high places, let alone the media (just read the mildly unblanced Thomas Szasz on the Carter Whitehouse, prescription drugs, and hypocrisy).

I hope these tapes are more interesting than THAT.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:16 PM

On Professional Conferences

Here're a few preliminary notes on the College Art Association.

Why do so many of my colleagues wear black? Are they trying to look like the artists? Please note, Art Historians, that the Studio Folks no longer wear all black. One of my immediate colleagues was bold and wore a lavendar suede jacket over her otherwise all-black ensemble; there have not yet been repercussions, but I wouldn't be surprised if her eventual tenure committee heard about it.

Why do so many of my older colleagues strive for youthful hair?

Why do people feel comfortable making programmatic statements about the paper they would have written on a particular topic when, in fact, they did NOT write a paper for the session? Do you suppose said "questioners" wrote an abstract which, sadly, was not accepted? I wonder.

Why do people let their children dress like tiny sluts and run around hotels screaming? Oh, I 'm sorry, that's a question about the people involved in the cheerfleading competition who are also staying at the hotel. Still, it was amusing watching the intersection between two large bodies of people professionally trained in using words like "Spectacle" with such different meanings.

As I said earlier I wasn't presenting or interviewing -- I attended sessions and chatted with folks. I missed meeting the one person I really NEEDED to see, but I saw a bunch of other folks I hadn't seen in forever. I even learned some things at some papers; all in all, a good conference.

Further - is it a sad sign of my life that one of the high points was the possibility of wearing a pair of new dress shoes out? After all, there's no snow in Atlanta....

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:48 PM

Registered Typekey Comments

So far three (3)* people who come here and comment have bothered to register a Typekey identity and thus count as "registered commenters." That suggests to me that most people feel about that as I do about re-registering as a blogger user in order to leave comments on blogspot sites -- unimpressed.

Let me point out the two advantages of being a registered commenter -- one for you, one for me. YOU get instant gratification when your comment shows up immediately. I get delayed gratification when I eventually check the Movabletype comment control panel and find out that I don't have to check and see if I want your comment to show up.

Feel free to register, regulars (I'm looking at YOU, Mrs. Smith and Frau Doktor ADM), but don't put yourself out. I only did in order to comment at Joanne Jacobs's site.

oooh - update - six (6)!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:33 PM

February 17, 2005

Off to College Art . . .

. . . if you see me there, say hey. I'm not presenting, not appearing on either side of the interview equation -- just attending for the love of learning. Or that's what I'll tell the Provost when I ask for reimbursement.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:01 AM

February 16, 2005

Bible Classes, Public Schools

I never cease to wonder how districts doing this fend off lawsuits - Staunton, Virginia, sends 1st-3rd graders for 30 minute (once a week) Bible classes during the school day. The article mentions that so long as they are held off-premises the Supreme Court has allowed them, though. 80% of the students attend.

Here's the real mystery -- I also don't see why those who choose not to attend "sit idly." Make 'em read at their desks! The school board is going to "send teachers to workshops to develop instructional techniques for the period." We're talking 30 minutes, once a week; they're saying that certified teachers can't already develope an instructional plan to cover 30 minutes once a week for 20% of their usual student load?

whoops! I deleted a comment off of here by mistake - blacklist overenthusiasm. I hadn't even read it yet -- I was too quick off the click. By the way, my interest isn't the religious instruction, it's the CLUELESSNESS of the certified professionals who can't figure out what to do with an extra 30 minutes a week! --MCT

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:46 AM

So we got vaccinated and then . . . ?

Dr. Smith reports on a study on the flu vaccine - and its failure to lower death rates. Tiresome. I've been going to the (this year considerable) trouble to get these for about 10 years (after a bout of pneumonia). Maybe it's helped, maybe it hasn't.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:28 AM

February 15, 2005

Real Defense of Marriage?

At the Right Side of the Rainbow, a simple prescription for social conservatives who wish to defeat same-sex marriage.

Of course, some of 'em are trying: Covenant Marriage in Arkansas, complete with an invitation to the Governor's renewal of vows.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:26 PM

Archaeology Explodes History, Confirms Myth

Well, that would be slightly more inflammatory than the Guardian's Palace find lends weight to myth, but not, on the whole, inaccurate. Of course folks who keep up are seldom TOO surprised by archaeology, but that's not the history people study in school. Most people are still cheerfully assured that the whole Romulus and Remus thing as a myth and/or legend. Now I'm not saying that I believe that Rhea Silvia was impregnated by Mars (princesses have been using that line to explain unwanted pregnancies for a long time) or that the she-wolf story is true, but I see no reason to practice the hermeneutic of suspicion to the degree that the 19th century found useful and which lingers -- oh, it lingers. There's nothing more depressing than the Zombie Errors of textbooks. As someone who specializes in the world before A.D. 1000 I have trained myself to insert "currently no excavated" between the "no" and "evidence" in "there is no evidence that. . . ."

There have been precious few new texts discovered since the late 18th century (you should have seen the interest on the list serves about an unpublished 5th/6th century Procopius of Gaza text and the doubts thereafter last month); what we've learned from archaeology in the last 100 years is still being digested -- even as more platesful of evidence are served forth.

Of course the evidence of the spade (and the dendrochronologist) must be evaluated critically, and the popular press isn't the place to do that -- but over and over again text-based histories written before archaeology are found wanting. I shudder when I think that Gibbon is still in print. Worse, his monument of great prose is available as an audiobook (no links. I HOPE you won't listen.).

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:37 AM

February 14, 2005

IT Department Full-Employment Program

On Wednesday, Sophos said the Trojan was the first piece of malicious ware to target the anti-spyware product, which is still only available in a test version.

Attacks on beta versions.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:24 PM

Unintended Consequences - Habitat for Humanity Housing Crisis

I'd never read much about the restrictions on Habitat for Humanity houses - but this Washington Post article makes it clear that things are not as simple as I thought. House values are rising quickly in Northern Virginia, which means that property taxes rise quickly. Habitat house owners can't sell at a profit until the 20 year mortgage is paid off, so they can't sell and move somewhere cheaper. Etc, etc. Interesting.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:41 AM

February 13, 2005

Doctor Weevil!

Doctor Weevil is almost back to blogging! A happy day for the classically-inclined, the cranky, and the well-read. Neither his domain change nor his template is resolved yet, but click and click and see.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:17 AM

February 11, 2005

Constructing Curricula

Professor Burke writes about the problems with core curricula - impulses, desires, and realities. I can't face the Atlantic article he talks about yet - it's Friday and I'm reading a book about sacred languages* and waiting for a neighbor to come downstairs for a drink.

*By the way, I recommend this for anyone who tends to idolize Latin in the liturgy.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:29 PM

February 10, 2005

Well, at least Al Franken Wouldn't be a Carpetbagger

Franken is as least a native of the state where he might run for Senate. My junior senator? Well, I wonder how many nights she's actually slept inside the state in her whole life. It would also be an honorable way out of his Air America contract....

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:51 PM

City Museum of Washington Begs for Bucks

All hat, no cattle - what about all building, no exhibits? Wasn't that more or less the complaint about the City of Washington museum when it closed last fall, that they had splendidly restored (yet another damn*) Carnegie Library but had nothing much on display? Well, they're trying again. They only want a million dollar a year subsidy. And they intend to rent out most of their building. Yes. Most. "He said the museum would occupy part of the reopened building, most of which would be geared to tourists and convention-goers."

I think this is an exemplary case of historical preservation over sense. They had no collection, they had no exhibition plan, they only had big money for restoration. They restored it and no one came. "Although initial attendance projections ranged from 100,000 to 450,000 a year, the museum, which opened in May 2003, drew only 36,536 paying visitors in its first 15 months."

*Historical preservation absolutists will disagree, but there are too many Beaux Arts buildings in Washington as it is (and too many flailing reuses for Carnegie Libraries elsewhere, come to that - reading rooms actually don't make great restaurants. They were designed for shushing librarians, after all -- the marble makes them far too noisy.).

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:18 AM

Foreign Language Follies

The doctor speaks English. The patient speaks French. Read to the end, though - it's really quite a nice article.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:09 AM

February 9, 2005

Pain. Perception. PEOPLE, people.

Further evidence that people who make their therapeutic decisions based on medical common opinion rather than actual principles are making a big mistake is here, in the New York Times Perhaps you should treat people like people, even if you don't perceive them as being conscious or feeling pain. Yes, I'm talking about philosophers who talk a lot about consciousness and mind and encourage us to kill people.

"We assumed we would get some minimal response in these patients, but nothing like this," said Dr. Nicholas Schiff, an assistant professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan and the study's lead author. The two men showed near-normal patterns in the language-processing areas of their brains, Dr. Schiff said, suggesting that some neural networks "could be perfectly preserved under some conditions."

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:07 AM

College Art

Anyone else going to C.A.A. next week? (Well, other than YOU, Ms. Procrastination. I know about you.) Now that I'm tenure track the provost will pay part even for travel when I'm not presenting. Call me a sell-out, but I'm taking The Woman's* cash. Well, the partial reimbursement of expenses.

*Our last 4 (real and acting) provosts have been female. I don't think of provosts as The Man.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:49 AM

Evangelism vs. Congregation Building

Here's a fascinating article in Christianity Today about differences between Jews for Jesus and Messianic Jews -- identiy, leadership, theology, practice.

Via Amy Welborn, who (as one might have predicted), has a fine reflection on what Lent's about. Hint: don't give up chocolate to lose weight. Or, do, but don't call it Lent.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:53 AM

February 8, 2005

Iraq Archeology Have you Worried?

Your best source for all your Sack of the Baghdad Museum needs, Cronaca.com, offers an interesting thought on the use and abuse of architectural and archaeological monuments as sniper sites. If we aren't going to use them should we let terrorists shoot people from the top of the minaret of the mosque of al Mutawakkil in Samarra?

As someone who grew up in Chattanooga and probably did the battlefield tour with visitors or scout troops or someone every year from 7 to 18, I say climb the tower. Should we be afraid that someone will be humiliated enough to become a terrorist because a minaret which hasn't been used for the call to prayer (well, there's no MOSQUE under it) for more than 500 years? I'd say not.

I like Mr. Nishimura's headline, too: Why the Pentagon ignores archeologists. It's a useful reminder of how whole fields can run to the margins of the discussion and leap into the void.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:36 PM

Churchill's Academic Background

Tenure protects freedom of speech. It shouldn't protect fraud. That's the accusation here -- and it's academic fraud, not fraudulent claims of ethnic background, as alleged by the American Indian Movement. Prof. Reynolds asks about peer review -- and not of the articles, but the reviews before hiring and before tenure. The University of Colorado may have some investigating to do.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:17 AM

Mmmmm, Vampires

Shamelessly cribbed from Cacciaguida:

Romania: what the State Department travel advisories don't tell you about.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:32 AM

February 7, 2005

Women and Science, Men and . . . ?

Poor President Summers.

Let's talk about a different discrepancy, one with a hundred explanations which no one finds satisfying; everyone involved in study abroad programs agrees that more women go that men -- at lots of schools the imbalance approaches 70/30 (my 2003 program in Rome was 12:8 female to male and everyone on campus thought that was quite good). I sat on a board last year during which the professionals offered a number of possible explanations. I have no idea if anyone has done any serious research about this, but I'll offer some as an anecdotal report:

1. Male students have a stronger committment to sports, and that committment often precludes a term away from school (that would be true of anyone who wants to start at, say, lacrosse at these Colleges. Lacrosse is a Division 1 sport here.)

2. Male students have a stronger tendency to major in sciences (yeah, yeah, yeah) which all have far more tracked curricula than the humanities or social sciences. There are small programs for Math majors (intercollegiate, not our own) and we have a program for biology majors in Australia. Want to major in Chemistry? Can't study abroad and graduate in 4 years.

3. The parents of male students are perceived (please! this isn't me! this is a statement from a woman who has been working with study abroad programs for more than 15 years!) to think that study abroad is "girl stuff." In families with both male and female children the female children are more likely to study abroad than the males (though the male children in those families are more likely to study abroad than males from other families).

4. Administrators and professors involved in study abroad programs perceive female students as more intellectually adventurous than male students. I disagreed with that one - certainly in the tiny sample of MY Rome program they weren't.

By the way, at these Colleges it isn't just a matter of those chosen to participate -- the applications come in greater numbers from women.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:57 AM

February 5, 2005

Academic Freedom =/= Paid Speaking Engagements

I've read some suggestions that the University of Colorado may be preparing the ground for firing Ward Churchill. I'm opposed. Academic freedom means the freedom for the tenured to make fools of themselves.

I got into a rather -- umm -- warm discussion of the Churchill situation last night at a dinner party in Aurora, NY, home of Wells College. Thankfully the professor defending Churchill's opinion -- indeed, he agreed that those killed in the WTC were morally complicit in all of America's evils (his throwaway line - there was a CIA office in the building; of course, there was also a museum dedicated to the first African graveyard in New York, but I guess they were little Eichmans, too) -- is not a professor at these Colleges. I wouldn't have wanted to insult a tenured professor at my own institution by implying that his employment by an institution founded by one of the name partners in the Wells Fargo company might make him complicit in 19th century American genocide. I use the verb "imply" because I didn't use the G word but I did mention Wells Fargo.

However, back to the topic of this post, academic freedom is not a promise of paid speaking engagements. It is no abridgement of Churchill's freedom of speech OR academic freedom to cancel the show in Clinton (by the way, Hamilton is in Clinton and Colgate is in Hamilton. And William Smith is our women's college and Hobart is our men's college. Upstate New York is confusing.)

By the way, in much of the bloggage people seem not to mention that Churchill was not going to be talking about 9/11, but about prisons and Native American rights, something about which he might have something useful to say based on his academic specialty (unless, of course, you believe that his ethnic identification problems invalidates his work). The Kirkland Center failed to exercise care in finding out about their invited guest. They should've known and dealt with the issues on campus in advance.

Here's an example of care exercised with invited speakers -- we are hosting Prof. Wendy Doniger this spring. She comes with built-in hecklers. We know this. What's more, there will be a concerted effort to explain to Hindu students what the controversy is about and why they might be interested in hearing about Doniger's approach. That said, we still hope that no one runs protest busses.

There's lots of commentary at Cliopatria, mainly academic, and now featuring the word "McCarthyism."

There's lots of commentary at The Volokh Conspiracy, some of which is legal and much of which is academic.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:12 AM

February 4, 2005

What I'm Reading - on spec

"Every Valley Shall Be Exalted": The Discourse of Opposites in Twelfth-Century Thought, Constance Brittain Bouchard. Even though Bouchard has a strong tendency to write about the top of the social spectrum (NOT that there's anything wrong with that; my main folks are the Carolingian court, after all), this book considers the other side of the dialectical set-up -- the valleys, unexalted, in terms of their worth. She is trying to help us see that dialectical opposition is not necessarily the same as the modern "other." since my #3 or #4 project for this term (which may get moved up if the last abstract I sent out is accepted) is on a difficult-to-explicate iconography based on the base. For longer-term readers (no, I haven't been trying very hard to redeem my archives, sorry, no links), the genitalia-themed pilgrimage badges I was messing with last April.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:24 AM

February 2, 2005

Ethiopian Legitimism

Restore the Empire!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:51 PM

Vaclav Havel on EU Appeasement

Vaclav Havel on EU Appeasement of Castro. Appeasement of whom? For Castro they're willing to check names at the door to make sure no dissidents attend the cocktail parties:

Try to imagine what will happen: At each European embassy, someone will be appointed to screen the list, name by name, and assess whether and to what extent the persons in question behave freely or speak out freely in public, to what extent they criticize the regime, or even whether they are former political prisoners. Lists will be shortened and deletions made, and this will frequently entail eliminating even good personal friends of the diplomats in charge of the screening, people whom they have given various forms of intellectual, political or material assistance. It will be even worse if the EU countries try to mask their screening activities by inviting only diplomats to embassy celebrations in Cuba.

For Castro and the Cuban vacation spots they're willing to do this? Is this pocketbook or ideology? I have a lot of Italian friends who have been on vacation in Cuba. They start the conversation by denouncing the unujust American embargo, talking about the beauty of the country and the waters, and praising socialism (most of my friends and acquaintances in Italy is -- umm -- just enough older than me that I don't ask what they were doing between 1975 and 1980). Finally, though, they get down to price. You see, it's cheaper to take a vacation in Cuba from Rome than anywhere else in the Caribbean. I tell them they've made a pragmatically bourgeois decision, that their parents are probably proud of them, and leave it at that.

Castro release 14 out of a group of 75 dissidents (that's 18%) and the EU begins a thaw . . . .

Oh, well.