the feminist librarian reads

There are a number of factors at play in the current rash of controversies. One is a rather stunning sense of privilege, the confident sense of superiority that allows someone to pass sweeping judgment on a body of work without having done any study at all. After the Chronicle of Higher Education published an item highlighting the dissertations of five young PhD candidates in African-American studies at Northwestern University, Chronicle blogger Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote that the mere titles of the dissertations were sufficient cause to eliminate all black studies classes. Riley hadn’t read the dissertations; they’re not even published yet. When questioned about this, she argued that as “a journalist… it is not my job to read entire dissertations before I write a 500-word piece about them,” adding: “there are not enough hours in the day or money in the world to get me to read a dissertation on historical black midwifery.” Riley tried to justify her view with a cliched, culture-wars-style plaint about the humanities and higher education: “Such is the state of academic research these days…. The publication topics become more and more irrelevant and partisan. No one reads them.” This is not mere arrogance; it is the same cocooned “white ghetto” narrow-mindedness that allows someone like Michael Hicks to be in charge of a major American school system yet not know “Rosa Clark’s” correct name.

Anti-intellectualism is taking over the US | Comment is free | The Guardian

Source: theguardian.com