i remember hitting grad school after spending a short lifetime reading direct sources as an undergrad. i discovered that grad school was about discussing things in the way you say it should take plac. the only difference, I suppose, was that graduate school was about pretending AS IF you read the book.
funny story. I was chairing a sub committee for a team taught course when i was doing a fellowship. we were rebuilding the course - new readings, format, plenaries, etc. so we gathered suggested material, assigned ourselves task of reading the material, and reconvening to discuss it and see which article should be included in the course anthology.
during a meeting, one of the profs started going on about the material, recapping it in ways that didn't make sense but were, in fact, common criticisms to the tradition he thought they were writing from. since i'd read the book 8 times because I taught several courses with it, I stupidly said something like, " I think you may be thinking of another author? These authors say such and so. Maybe we should reschedule so Jim has time to read the article."
lol
meanwhile, unpacking the convo, a feminist mentor explained what I'd done wrong. Firstly, I should never ever assume anyone read the material. Thus, one must never ever point out that someone didn't read the material, especially if said non-reader was more powerful than you. Otherwise, you are considered an upstart. blah blah blah. The prof later explaiined that he considered my upstartiness "charming" which was just code for: I like big casabas.
At 01:30 PM 2/3/2012, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Discussion on an e-mail list is primarily discussion of the opinions and
>empirical matter _exressed_ ON the list by participants in the discussion.
>Reference to external sources is always a matter of interest, but any
>insistence by any poster that such and such a source MUST be consulted (or
>that such consultation is a prerequisite to participation in a given
>discussion is a deliberate attempt to sabotage the very existence of the
>list as a forum.
>
>Carrol
>
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