31–40 of 134 posts
I dunno.
What's it with humanities people that make them believe that only them, of all people, are able to do critical thinking? Anyway, the author is part of the problem. Just at the beginning of the article he states that humanities are only good for rich students to pass their time. Until the professors themselves stop thinking this way, no government will prioritize them. (And no, I don't agree that humanities are useles…
What's it with humanities people that make them believe that only them, of all people, are able to do critical thinking? Anyway, the author is part of the problem. Just at the beginning of the article he states that humanities are only good for rich students to pass their time. Until the professors themselves stop thinking this way, no government will prioritize them. (And no, I don't agree that humanities are useles…
They certainly aren't the only ones capable of critical thinking, but they are supposedly the ones who received a 4-year education in critical thinking , while other people were spending time learning about physics or what have you.
PS: With this mindset listening to a news broadcast can become almost painful as you see layers of deception. Study a little marketing and suddenly a lot of 'toys' seem more like 'junk'.
I think that the humanities gave away a good deal of their own prestige by chasing a false notion that they could and should become scientific. Northrop Frye, whom Eagleton mentions, had some big grand ideas about schematizing things, I recall.
I wonder if this death of criticism is misty eyed nastolgia for a future that either never, or rarely existed. Let's not forget that our so-called great universities: - For a long time excluded women, Jews and many minorities. - Were the providence of only the technocratic elite. - Did very little research before the 20th century. And now that the costs escalate out of control, is it any wonder that they have to go m…
We can still be nostalgic for the loss of things that weren't yet perfect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if this death of criticism is misty eyed nastolgia for a future that either never, or rarely existed. Not entirely. Take a look at Louis Menand's The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University ( http://jakeseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-academy-lo... ). Universities grew enormously from 1945 – 1975. During that time, too, a disproportionately large number of students major…
Shouldn't the overproduction of Phds drive down university costs? I hear you on the bogosity factor. I wonder why this persists. Perhaps because by the time someone realizes it's all BS, their career it too invested in exposing it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're assuming that teaching ability scales without scaling the workforce. Having an instructor provide for more students means each student gets less instructor-time. More instructor-time increases the learning ability of most students. And so class size is an important metric. For most universities, their biggest product is their own marketing and promotional material. Now that they are corporatizing, they are pai…
I'm thinking that 'instructor-time' is a myth. A class of 20, say 3 lectures of an hour a week - that's just 9 minutes per student if they spent ALL the time interacting. But they don't; more like a minute per student tops. No, instructor-time is moot. Maybe instructor training is important; maybe a quality syllabus helps; a good book is key. But the instructor/lecturer can lecture 10 or 100 equally well.
Depends on the class. I once had a colleague say that he'd teach the intro class to 5000 students in the basketball arena. For that class, at that university, it would probably work.
I'm teaching a senior-level econometrics class to 10 students right now. Everyone has a laptop in front of them, typing into RStudio throughout the class. I help students when they can't get things to run properly. We have plenty of other interaction. They each do unique homework sets and their own project. There's no way that class would work with 100 students, or for that matter, more than 15 students.
What's it with humanities people that make them believe that only them, of all people, are able to do critical thinking? Anyway, the author is part of the problem. Just at the beginning of the article he states that humanities are only good for rich students to pass their time. Until the professors themselves stop thinking this way, no government will prioritize them. (And no, I don't agree that humanities are useles…
I suspect it might be ego, after a fashion. Having observed that those educated in other fields have more marketable skills, a need to claim one's own education has produced a uniquely valuable skill arises.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're assuming that teaching ability scales without scaling the workforce. Having an instructor provide for more students means each student gets less instructor-time. More instructor-time increases the learning ability of most students. And so class size is an important metric. For most universities, their biggest product is their own marketing and promotional material. Now that they are corporatizing, they are pai…
I'm thinking that 'instructor-time' is a myth. A class of 20, say 3 lectures of an hour a week - that's just 9 minutes per student if they spent ALL the time interacting. But they don't; more like a minute per student tops. No, instructor-time is moot. Maybe instructor training is important; maybe a quality syllabus helps; a good book is key. But the instructor/lecturer can lecture 10 or 100 equally well.
"the slow death of the university as a center of humane critique."
What? What the hell is humane critique?
"Universities, which in Britain have an 800-year history, have traditionally been derided as ivory towers, and there was always some truth in the accusation. Yet the distance they established between themselves and society at large could prove enabling as well as disabling, allowing them to reflect on the values, goals, and interests of a social order too frenetically bound up in its own short-term practical pursuits to be capable of much self-criticism."
Wow... You know what allows you to reflect? Having enough time while being an active part of society. Time to reflect, being active to have proper perspective. If all you're doing is reading books and talking, all you can reflect on is books and hearsay, combined with some intuition.
The last thing an English major can do is reflect on anything that requires understanding mathematics or statistics or... you know, the stuff that people who do science have to know?
Just because you read Shakespeare and Dostoevsky, doesn't mean you can critique anything that actually matters, that people who haven't read Dostoevsky can't...
There's scientific knowledge, and then there's entertainment such as fiction and television shows etc. Guess which category this guy belongs to?
The all-over-the-place sloppy writing this guy produces is telling. I guess when you're surrounded by a bunch of folks who don't create anything but words, you start thinking you know a thing or two beyond entertaining people with words.