If I want scholarly research on NA populations I go to Russell, not Ward. In the disagreement between them I was under the impression that the issue was one of an improper listing of a citation. I would not assume that Ward would have broken any new ground or that his knowledge of NA populations was greater than Russells.
If I want easily accessible information written for a popular audience I read Churchill. I consider his work much like Christian Parenti's book "Lockdown" there are no new discoveries in the book but it is a good book. With no new discoveries I guess Dennis considers it "crap" as well?
His book on Indian residential schools, "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" is a good read and full of information that is not readily available. It is not scholarly and breaks no new ground. I don't expect it to. If I want a scholarly approach to this subject David Adams book "Education for Extinction" would be a better if less accessible choice.
With what you have written I now at least partly understand Dennis's complaint but disagree that if his work is not scholarly and hasn't "discovered something no one else has" like Chomsky's work then it is rubbish. I think professors who writer for popular audiences do society a great service by increasing our exposure to ideas and facts that would remain obscure except within academic circles. If you want to criticise him as non-scholarly and as more of a writer for popular audiences that's is a very legitimate complaint but this hardly makes his writing "crap" to quote Dennis again. Maybe Dennis knows lots of authors who have put out the same information of concern to Native Americans in an easily accessible form that Churchill has. I don't, and that makes Churchills contribution valuable. I cannot get history students at the community college to read Russell Thornton's work, it isn't understandable to them. I can get them to read Churchills' work however because they can understand it. While Dennis may think this means nothing in the real physical world I happen to think it does.
John Thornton
On 20 May 2006 at 23:00, info at pulpculture.org wrote:
> At 06:39 PM 5/20/2006, jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net wrote:
> >good authors are not immuned from doing dumb things though. Irrespective
> >of a few dumb mistakes
> >however the above books were not written by a third-rate hack.
>
> Hack
>
> A worn-out horse for hire; a jade.
> A writer hired to produce routine or commercial writing.
>
> Obviously, he wasn't hiring himself out, but let me just speak to what has
> been said about his work as an academic, because I think it confirms that
> "worn out horse for hire" and "routine writing" definition.
>
> The committee said it in 'polite' academic terms. Timothy Burke said it a
> little more brutally. What Dennis means by it, I'm not sure. But I'll tell
> you what I think it means in academic-speak. But let me preface this by
> saying this:
>
> 1. It's about hackery in academia, which isn't necessarily hackery
> elsewhere. Thus, one's worked can be judged "good" elsewhere, but not in
> academia. Consider for example a case of a Cornell psychologist who, IIRC,
> didn't get tenure (or something) because some of his work is popular and
> produced in trade paperbacks. [1]
>
> 2. Dont' get offended. I'm not dissing anything and I'm not saying that the
> basic ideas aren't good. Though I will tell you that, if I can stomach
> reading him, I may have to incorporate this into my analysis of the
> drawbacks of the lefty thought I mentioned in my last post b/c he sounds
> like a perfect candidate for it. Thus, in my personal opinion, I'm leaning
> toward the thought that the theory of social life he deploys does suck. :)
> It doesn't follow that you have to toss out other valuable insights, only
> that you might have to toss out the metatheory like dirty pampers and keep
> the baby.
>
> In academia, you are not thought highly of if you have a really long list
> of publications and they all basically say the same thing or expand on the
> same few ideas. In some circles, this IS considered cheating, though it's
> certainly not going to get you fired or brought up on charges or anything
> of the sort.
>
> Bitch | Lab
> http://blog.pulpculture.org