tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post6569187196307960458..comments2024-03-09T03:20:20.004-05:00Comments on Tenured Radical: What To Do When Surrounded By the Patriarchy? Or, Rethinking Conference HellTenured Radicalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05703980598547163290noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-31543728994765251042010-12-04T01:33:39.354-05:002010-12-04T01:33:39.354-05:00Tiffany Key Rings annular precious stones bolt th...<a href="http://www.tiffanyeshop.com/tiffany-jewellery/tiffany-key-rings" rel="nofollow"><strong>Tiffany Key Rings</strong></a> annular precious stones bolt the ablaze and accomplish it dance. Drop earrings in platinum with annular ablaze diamonds, for broken ears. Acclaimed Precious stones by the Yard accumulating is Elsa Peretti’s absolute selection. So a lot of acclaimed stars aswell like cutting them.123https://www.blogger.com/profile/16699063148730098265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-72918222312157950482008-06-11T09:35:00.000-05:002008-06-11T09:35:00.000-05:00Thanks for the posts. I know that the Historical ...Thanks for the posts. I know that the Historical Society Conference per se was not mentioned in the original letter, but I thought I'd address this anyhow. I'm associate editor of Historically Speaking, the bulletin of the society, and was involved in planning the meeting. What TR suggests about the SHA and other organizations, a political/ideological widening out with time, has happened with THS. The society includes historians on the right and the left. It’s not a bastion of patriarchy. It’s not a collection of regressive, fossilized, malcontents, as the letter and the response would suggest. Nor is it a collection of misogynistic brown shirts. In fact, and this is only based on the premise that the letter was about the Baltimore meeting, the 2008 conference hosted a broad range of scholars and sessions. Look at the panels, and papers, on-line at http://www.bu.edu/historic/conference08/. I think that the conference was as diverse, with regards to the race and gender of presenters, as either the SHA or the AHA. One of the best sessions I attended, “What Public Historians Can Teach Academic Historians,” featured Heather Cox Richardson; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Jill Ogline, Washington College; Lisa Adams, The Garamond Agency; Denise D. Meringolo, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. How that squares with the idea of a Little Patriarchy Conference is beyond me. Franklin Knight, JHU, and Eric Arnesen, UIC, did much to widen the scope of the conference. Indeed, the general topic of the meeting, “Migration, Diaspora, Ethnicity, & Nationalism in History,” is hardly “Deeds of Dead White Men,” or “Guns and Ammo.” <BR/><BR/>I agree with TR. A historian can learn much from those who don’t think like he or she does. We’ve tried to foster a real sense of debate in Historically Speaking. We actually publish opposing viewpoints in our pages, something often missing in the academy as whole.Randallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16755286304057000048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-63627325839195074312008-06-09T10:18:00.000-05:002008-06-09T10:18:00.000-05:00Wow -- There is whole other post happening in the ...Wow -- There is whole other post happening in the comments section.<BR/><BR/>On the original entry, I would say one of the most important things that I learned from my advisor was how to engage professionally with historians on the conservative side (which is a bigger percentage of the population than we like to pretend). Making it all about being "right" and their being "wrong" ends in frustration for both sides. It can also inadvertently stall a junior career.<BR/><BR/>As you suggest, there are ways to engage, find common ground, and keep the conversation moving. It also makes you much better at explaining your own thoughts outside of an academic bubble of like-minded people.GayProfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11289510184782252498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-7677913364347823012008-06-08T14:53:00.000-05:002008-06-08T14:53:00.000-05:00anonymous:Glad I could help. If you click on my p...anonymous:<BR/><BR/>Glad I could help. If you click on my profile, you can send me an email through the Google account linked to this blog -- that's "gmail."<BR/><BR/>best,<BR/><BR/>TRTenured Radicalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05703980598547163290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-24285106211209022762008-06-08T14:08:00.000-05:002008-06-08T14:08:00.000-05:00I am both stunned and touched by your response.I a...I am both stunned and touched by your response.I am almost speechless. He gets his feelings hurt and withdraws.<BR/>He takes things really hard. Of course. So simple.<BR/><BR/>He is appealing this grade as he is very angry and considers it a grudge grade. Anyway,<BR/>Apparently the Romans weren't too classy (and had an inferiority complex with regard to the Greeks )and were not above indulging in some very basic material.What he was translating to me was some story about a bunch of slaves and a rich ex-slave at a party he had thrown and all the goings on. It was quite low life and amusing. My<BR/>kid apparently thinks the Romans didn't appreciate themselves and the chip on their shoulders vis a vis the Greeks was ill considered.<BR/>I thought it was Horace but it was quite bawdy-maybe someone else. I will ask him.<BR/>This was very generous of you.Not that I intend to impose, but what is gmail?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-49719099240535268942008-06-08T10:42:00.000-05:002008-06-08T10:42:00.000-05:00Dear anonymous 9:33,What you describe sounds like ...Dear anonymous 9:33,<BR/><BR/>What you describe sounds like profoundly unprofessional behavior on the part of an inexperienced teacher who needs some mentoring, and won't get it unless this is brought to someone's attention. Angry as a parent or student has a right to be at such demeaning behavior, as a program chair, I would want to know that one of my teachers was out of control. And you don't know if no one tells you -- or you know so far after the fact that it is as good as not knowing.<BR/><BR/>Here's the advice I would give Duncan, given what you say:<BR/><BR/>1. He needs to act, or learn how to do so, rather than retreat. I would suggest he seek out an ally --another member of the faculty, a class dean, or his advisor. I would start with the grade: even with 25% participation, I don't see how that grade is a C if what you say about the rest of his grades is true, so if I were Duncan I would challenge the grade and use it as an opportunity to document what he experienced in the class.<BR/><BR/>2. If Duncan is capable of working at the graduate level, he should talk to the department chair about taking graduate courses: this is usually possible, and i would start now in case some special appeal needs to be made over the summer. Although the teacher handled the diverse achievement level of her students poorly, it's really hard to teach the same class to students working at very different levels I would have pulled him out of the class and taught him in tutorial if he was bored, but if the teacher was a grad sudent or an adjunct this is an unlikely outcome.) In addition, he deserves to be challenged, and I can't imagine that there aren't lots of other people in the department who would be overjoyed to work with him if he is so talented.<BR/><BR/>3. If what you mean by "special" is that Duncan is on the Asperger's spectrum, or has some kind of diagnosis that also presents as genius, Duncan would do well to check into the office for students with special needs: he could get some good coaching about how to stand up for himself and get what n=he needs out of school, and his teachers (at his request) could be notified of any special needs, which by law must be accomodated (for example, being admitted to graduate classes or being held accountable for not showing up before a final grade is given, if that is his pattern.) What you describe sounds like bullying to me, which the teaching profession is not immune from, but otherwise well-meaniing faculty might need to know that Duncan takes things hard and withdraws. The wise faculty member might then be aware that what might seem like a spoof, a joke, or an attempt to be funny to make a pedagogical impact (although frankly, why anyone would find the need to use the word scrotum in a class on Horace is beyond me), could hurt him very deeply even when the other students laughed it off and got hte joke. Duncan, in turn, needs to learn not to occupy a middle ground when faced with a difficult emotional situation: dropping the class would have been a better option than not showing up, and going to see the department chair when he was origially told to "suck it up" an even better option. I would also encourage Duncan to contact one of the of ther students in the class and compare what happened, prefacing it by saying: "All these things really hurt my feelings, and I want to know if you felt the teacher was mocking me." By doing this, he would get another person's perspective, and give that person a chance to reach out to him -- which in turn, might leave him less alienated, and ultimately less damaged by the experience over the long term.<BR/><BR/>Two things I would add as a caveat. Although this situation seems to be about race and gender prejudice in a graphic way, I don't think it is. <BR/>I think it is about an inexperienced teacher who "played to the crowd" in a very cheap and mean way to cover up her own insecurities about feeling out of control. On a final note: be very sure that what Duncan says happened actually happened before you take some kind of definitve institutional action beyond asking for mediation. If you want a grade challenge, ask to see Duncan's graded work first. Ask him to write down, to the best of his ability, when he missed classes and what proximity that had to the incidents you describe. Good kids -- bright kids, who don't want to disappoint their parents -- sometimes come up with explanations for bad grades that shift the blame to otohers, when in fact bad grades are often a symptom of a more complex and difficult adjustment to college that needs to be addressed.<BR/><BR/>If you want to ask me more about this, drop a note to my gmail account -- this treads the line of my ethical statement and I don't want to write more about a student I don't know. But I would be happy to elaborate on any of these points privately by email.<BR/><BR/>Good luck,<BR/><BR/>TRTenured Radicalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05703980598547163290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-202541840034707212008-06-08T09:33:00.000-05:002008-06-08T09:33:00.000-05:00I have a question.I have a son who is quite "speci...I have a question.I have a son who is quite "special"-I have been told to try to understand this-and that he has essentially "unlimited" capacity intellectually. He is also very sensitive to other people. He studies Latin and Greek at a prominent University. When tested as to his Latin level for translation as a Freshman he placed with the Doctoral candidates. All his Latin grades are quite high but for the one that he just completed that was taught by a young woman brought in for just one year to teach a required course in Horace or something-which he loves. He was quite frustrated because the class was very slow and tedious for him so he went to speak to her about it and she told him to "suck it up", she was teaching to the level of the other seven people in the class.Five of these were women.<BR/>She liked to make remarks in class such as "we all know that people with scrotums have smaller brains" <BR/>which got a giggle from the girls.<BR/>Many other such jovial remarks were made. He stopped going to some of her classes. My friend the psychiatrist said when Duncan can't communicate <BR/>with a techer he can't produce, he goes all internal or something from frustration. He nevertheless got above a 95% on every quiz, a 99% on the mid-term and an unknown grade on the final as she left and didn't return. She gave him a c for the course as she retained a 25% subjective portion for her grading as participation.<BR/>My question is this - how is a very cerebral but sensitive white male with a sense of justice supposed to react when his genitals and brain are mocked in class? Is this the price he is expected to pay for being part of the white male patriarchy? He was used to this in other situations but never in the Classics Department. It was only a generation ago his family lived in poverty and before that his great grandfather was destroyed for being a labor union activist, his five great uncles were killed in the first world war as privates and his other great grandfather was run out of Ireland for fighting the British.My question is this: Could some people be applying the race/sex/class analysis in an inappropriate and destructive manner? Are all white men to be subjected to harassment at any time? Can these men not be given any peace at all? He has a very subtle mind and this type of hamfisted non-thought has turned him away from the University as a source of education. I like to write you this real life stuff because I believe History comprises real life and those who live it, no to offend you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com