I received my Doctor of Philosophy title at 29. My field was in the realm of literary scholarship and the Humanities. Hence, when I read the following title of the recent NY Times article, my curiosity was peaked. It says, "Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left." Now, as someone who works with gender and literary scholarship, I tend to be averse to congealed labels. But, be that as it may, at times labels come in handy.
According to the article, a couple of sociologists contend that the stereotype that most professors tend to be liberal might just be a valid one. "Conjure up the classic image of a humanities or social sciences professor, the fields where the imbalance is greatest: tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular — and liberal. Even though that may be an outdated stereotype, it influences younger people’s ideas about what they want to be when they grow up."
As a professor in the Humanities, I don't quite agree with the premise of this piece. I did not receive my PhD in the Humanities because of my tweed-wearing professors in college. If anything, I always found tweed to be quite unfortunate as a sartorial choice. I was one of those who picked the Humanities for one simple reason: it picked me. The subject matter spoke to me more than those transmitting it to me. Still, this is an interesting article to consider. Another paragraph of note says:
"Typecasting, of course, is not the only cause for the liberal tilt. The characteristics that define one’s political orientation are also at the fore of certain jobs, the sociologists reported. Nearly half of the political lopsidedness in academia can be traced to four characteristics that liberals in general, and professors in particular, share: advanced degrees; a nonconservative religious theology (which includes liberal Protestants and Jews, and the nonreligious); an expressed tolerance for controversial ideas; and a disparity between education and income."
More here.
Showing posts with label academia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label academia. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Thursday, December 17, 2009
New Article Available on Journal
My literary theory-informed article on a relatively little known German medieval text called der borte is now published and available on the journal Neophilologus. The title of the article is Economics of Virtue in Dietrich von der Glezze’s der borte: A Wife Errant and a Husband Caught.
You may access the abstract and more information on the article here.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Assorted Links: Biology of Music and Black Metal University Course
1) The Biology of Music: Why do we like what we like?
"Rock is especially popular because it emphasizes the musical intervals whose frequency relationships are those we hear in the human speech."
More here.
2) This was a most interesting article to me. A Germanist at Emory teaches a course on black metal. A bit says: "Mr. Butler, an assistant professor of German studies at Emory University, talked about black-metal music — in its second-wave, largely Norwegian form — as a cryptic expression of Roman Catholicism. He started with the 16th-century Council of Trent and the early modern church. He quoted lyrics from the face-painted, early-1990s Norwegian black-metal bands Gorgoroth and Immortal; he framed black metal as respecting some of rock’s orthodoxies, as opposed to the heresies of disco and punk; and he spoke of black metal’s preoccupation with “the abiding and transcendent: stone, mountain, moon.”
And here:
"“The black metal event is a confession without need of absolution, without need of redemption,” he said. It is, he added, “a cleaning up of the mess of others.” He invoked the old English tradition of sin eating by means of burial cakes, in which a loaf of bread was put on a funeral bier or a corpse, and a paid member of the community would eat the bread, representing sin, to absolve and comfort the deceased.
“Black metal has become the sin eater,” he intoned. “It is engaged in transgressive behavior to be rid of it.” "
I highly recommend you read this in its entirety. Read more here.
"Rock is especially popular because it emphasizes the musical intervals whose frequency relationships are those we hear in the human speech."
More here.
2) This was a most interesting article to me. A Germanist at Emory teaches a course on black metal. A bit says: "Mr. Butler, an assistant professor of German studies at Emory University, talked about black-metal music — in its second-wave, largely Norwegian form — as a cryptic expression of Roman Catholicism. He started with the 16th-century Council of Trent and the early modern church. He quoted lyrics from the face-painted, early-1990s Norwegian black-metal bands Gorgoroth and Immortal; he framed black metal as respecting some of rock’s orthodoxies, as opposed to the heresies of disco and punk; and he spoke of black metal’s preoccupation with “the abiding and transcendent: stone, mountain, moon.”
And here:
"“The black metal event is a confession without need of absolution, without need of redemption,” he said. It is, he added, “a cleaning up of the mess of others.” He invoked the old English tradition of sin eating by means of burial cakes, in which a loaf of bread was put on a funeral bier or a corpse, and a paid member of the community would eat the bread, representing sin, to absolve and comfort the deceased.
“Black metal has become the sin eater,” he intoned. “It is engaged in transgressive behavior to be rid of it.” "
I highly recommend you read this in its entirety. Read more here.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Thinking Negatively Makes One Smarter?
Interesting study. The premise states that bad moods tend to make people less gullible as well as improve their ability to judge others.
""Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation, and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world," Forgas wrote.
"Our research suggests that sadness ... promotes information processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations."
For the study, Forgas and his team conducted several experiments that started with inducing happy or sad moods in their subjects through watching films and recalling positive or negative events.
In one of the experiments, happy and sad participants were asked to judge the truth of urban myths and rumors and found that people in a negative mood were less likely to believe these statements.
People in a bad mood were also less likely to make snap decisions based on racial or religious prejudices, and they were less likely to make mistakes when asked to recall an event that they witnessed.
The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style.""
Read more here.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
What's the Matter with Cultural Studies?
Michael Bérubé's article on The Chronicle asks some good questions about Cultural Studies, the scholars trained in it, and the state of the overall discipline.
A bit says:
"Cultural studies has taught us—or has tried to teach us—that you don't know the meaning of a mass-cultural artifact until you find out what those masses of people actually do with it. The Internet may be dominated by commercial interests, but the liberal/left blogosphere appeared out of nowhere, largely as the result of the "netroots" work of ordinary men and women with nothing more than laptops, modems, and a desire to offer an alternative to cable news. After my talk, someone asked me, "But isn't that really more a question for sociology?" To which I replied, "Well, the questions of sociology shouldn't be considered alien territory for cultural studies." The situation is even bleaker if you ask about cultural studies' impact on psychology, economics, political science, or international relations, because you might as well be asking about the carbon footprint of unicorns."
Read more here.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
"Organized, dogged, anal-retentive and slightly boring people are more likely to thrive" David Brooks
I'm not sure I agree with David Brook's recent NY Times piece, but the following words did ring some measure of truth to me.
However, I'm not so sure why it is that the CEO's claim such epithets as unidimensional and so forth.
Being humble, diffident, etc., doesn't necessarily preclude excitement now, does it?
"The C.E.O.’s that are most likely to succeed are humble, diffident, relentless and a bit unidimensional. They are often not the most exciting people to be around.
For this reason, people in the literary, academic and media worlds rarely understand business. It is nearly impossible to think of a novel that accurately portrays business success. That’s because the virtues that writers tend to admire — those involving self-expression and self-exploration — are not the ones that lead to corporate excellence."
Read more here.
However, I'm not so sure why it is that the CEO's claim such epithets as unidimensional and so forth.
Being humble, diffident, etc., doesn't necessarily preclude excitement now, does it?
"The C.E.O.’s that are most likely to succeed are humble, diffident, relentless and a bit unidimensional. They are often not the most exciting people to be around.
For this reason, people in the literary, academic and media worlds rarely understand business. It is nearly impossible to think of a novel that accurately portrays business success. That’s because the virtues that writers tend to admire — those involving self-expression and self-exploration — are not the ones that lead to corporate excellence."
Read more here.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
New Study on Gender and Academia
The abstract of the study says:
"Why aren’t there more women in science? Female college students are currently 37 percent less likely than males to obtain a bachelor’s degree in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and comprise only 25 percent of the STEM workforce. This paper begins to shed light on this issue by exploiting a unique dataset of college students who have been randomly assigned to professors over a wide variety of mandatory standardized courses. We focus on the role of professor gender. Our results suggest that while professor gender has little impact on male students, it has a powerful effect on female students’ performance in math and science classes, their likelihood of taking future math and science courses, and their likelihood of graduating with a STEM degree. The estimates are largest for female students with very strong math skills, who are arguably the students who are most suited to careers in science. Indeed, the gender gap in course grades and STEM majors is eradicated when high performing female students’ introductory math and science classes are taught by female professors. In contrast, the gender of humanities professors has only minimal impact on student outcomes. We believe that these results are indicative of important environmental influences at work. "
The full study may be found here.
"Why aren’t there more women in science? Female college students are currently 37 percent less likely than males to obtain a bachelor’s degree in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and comprise only 25 percent of the STEM workforce. This paper begins to shed light on this issue by exploiting a unique dataset of college students who have been randomly assigned to professors over a wide variety of mandatory standardized courses. We focus on the role of professor gender. Our results suggest that while professor gender has little impact on male students, it has a powerful effect on female students’ performance in math and science classes, their likelihood of taking future math and science courses, and their likelihood of graduating with a STEM degree. The estimates are largest for female students with very strong math skills, who are arguably the students who are most suited to careers in science. Indeed, the gender gap in course grades and STEM majors is eradicated when high performing female students’ introductory math and science classes are taught by female professors. In contrast, the gender of humanities professors has only minimal impact on student outcomes. We believe that these results are indicative of important environmental influences at work. "
The full study may be found here.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Gender in Higher Professions: How Does It figure?
"“People say, oh, we shouldn’t have quotas, but diversity is a form of excellence, and there are plenty of outstanding women out there,” Jo Handelsman, president of the Franklin society and a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin, said in an interview. “You don’t have to lower your standards in the slightest — you just have to pay attention.”
Some would like to see novel approaches to treating systemic problems that often work against women’s scientific ambitions. Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden of the University of California, Berkeley, have gathered extensive data showing stark male-female differences in the family structure and personal lives of academic researchers at the top tiers of the profession."
A very good piece! And not only for those in academia. More here.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Parapgraph of Note
"With so many scientific papers chasing so few pages in the most prestigious journals, the winners could be the ones most likely to oversell themselves—to trumpet dramatic or important results that later turn out to be false. This would produce a distorted picture of scientific knowledge, with less dramatic (but more accurate) results either relegated to obscure journals or left unpublished."
I'd agree with this for the most part.
via mr
I'd agree with this for the most part.
via mr
Friday, September 19, 2008
Smart People
I can't think of very many professionals in the academic realm who would absolutely abhor the premise of the film Smart People.
I, at least, am inclined to acquiesce to its premise.
Watch it.
I would expect that anyone who has taken a university literature course is bound to find a small measure of familiarity, affinity even....
A surprisingly good cast with a a more than decent screenplay and direction. And those who have spent some time on our neighboring Carnegie Mellon campus might be especially diverted by the film
graph her imdb
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Herr Professor Dr. Dr. Schmidt
Hat tip to MR for the pointer.
"Americans with PhDs beware: Telling people in Germany that you're a doctor could land you in jail. At least seven U.S. citizens working as researchers in Germany have faced criminal probes in recent months for using the title "Dr." on their business cards, Web sites and resumes. They all hold doctoral degrees from elite universities back home...Violators can face a year behind bars."
Read full article here.
"Americans with PhDs beware: Telling people in Germany that you're a doctor could land you in jail. At least seven U.S. citizens working as researchers in Germany have faced criminal probes in recent months for using the title "Dr." on their business cards, Web sites and resumes. They all hold doctoral degrees from elite universities back home...Violators can face a year behind bars."
Read full article here.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
At Harvard, a Proposal to Publish Free on Web
Now perhaps it won't take as along for an article to be reviewed and published. The answers lies in the world wide web. Per NY Times,
“In place of a closed, privileged and costly system, it will help open up the world of learning to everyone who wants to learn,” said Robert Darnton, director of the university library. “It will be a first step toward freeing scholarship from the stranglehold of commercial publishers by making it freely available on our own university repository.”
Under the proposal Harvard would deposit finished papers in an open-access repository run by the library that would instantly make them available on the Internet. Authors would still retain their copyright and could publish anywhere they pleased — including at a high-priced journal, if the journal would have them."
An excellent piece. Read full text here.
“In place of a closed, privileged and costly system, it will help open up the world of learning to everyone who wants to learn,” said Robert Darnton, director of the university library. “It will be a first step toward freeing scholarship from the stranglehold of commercial publishers by making it freely available on our own university repository.”
Under the proposal Harvard would deposit finished papers in an open-access repository run by the library that would instantly make them available on the Internet. Authors would still retain their copyright and could publish anywhere they pleased — including at a high-priced journal, if the journal would have them."
An excellent piece. Read full text here.
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