https://www.chronicle.com/article/I-Worked-With-Avital-Ronell-I/244415?cid=trend_right_a
Sorry it’s not one boxing…
Good to read for many reasons, including personal: one of my children is currently in German Studies (different university) and another is considering NYU.
And I so identify with the frustration that caused the author to point out that just because someone is a woman who personally doesn’t want to be discriminated against, that does not make her a “feminist scholar”, especially when she is literally a scholar in an academic setting, so she has chosen her field, and it very specifically isn’t feminism, thankyouverymuch.
That reminds me of someone who was, ostensibly, a feminist scholar at Columbia. She was a terrible professor because her sexism against other women was palpable, and it also affected what she would allow for readings, research, etc.
I had never taken a feminist studies course, despite having been active in the Second Wave, so I figured while I was there I should try it with one of the “foremost feminist scholars in the country”. It turned out to be my best class, only because we all figured out immediately how bad she was and arranged to have shadow classes: the day following each of her classes, we would meet without her, reading all the primary texts she wouldn’t allow, listening to the authority of various class members who were being belittled in the classroom for their knowledge, supporting the students who were being openly bullied because they were too pretty or privileged for her. I had an aunt who went to college with her, so I was able to get background info on childhood/environment factors that helped us put her behavior into context. It was a holistic educational experience, but despite her, if you see what I mean.
I do. Sounds like you had a great experience, despite an obvious bully in the classroom. It also sounds like the class itself was interested in learning the material instead of having knowledge handed down from on high…
Reading stuff like that article and this experience here makes me pretty despondent about the state of the academy, though.
This isn’t a specific to feminism, but it does speak to the larger problems of academia and the pecking order that’s been set up within it… I think it’s gotten worst since the crisis or at least has bubbled to the surface much more:
https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/big-lie?cid=trend_right_a
[ETA] I guess I can say that the “feminization” of academia (and I guess the racialization?) has led to a greater increase in those positions not being as widely valued, including with a drop in pay (especially to the humanities) or far fewer positions at the tenure track…
I mean, how can people not know that this is racist… and he white washed the other player (who is Japanese-Haitian):
The cartoonist and the shitty rag he’s published in have long form for hidden and outright racist bullshit.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of Australians are claiming that oh no, nothing racist about this 
Why am I so, so not surprised.
The park by my house doesn’t even have curb cuts. It’s the intersection of marginalization of women and people with disabilities.
( Although, my bias is always to push for more unity between women and people with disabilities. The challenge set, in terms of physical accommodations, is often very similar).
Related issue:
From a bush regeneration POV, we think of forest vegetation in three groups: groundcover, canopy and midlayer.
Most public parks tend to have good groundcover, okay canopy and almost no midlayer (AKA bushy shrubs and small trees). This is largely because people are scared of shrubbery; they worry about people lurking in it.
Now, if you just want parks as public recreation areas, this is fine. Manicured gardens do not have to be identical to a natural forest.
However, if you want your parkland to serve an environmental purpose (such as using it to preserve remnant native flora and fauna), this gets problematic.
In basic terms, the shrubbery is where all the small insectivorous birds hide from predators. Once you take away the shrubbery, the small birds die off. In turn, this removes a control of the insect population, which in turn sees the big trees damaged by insects. It’s all interrelated.
This seems a bit OT, perhaps we should split it?
But most parks are not large or well-connected enough to be good refugia. Insects and herps, possibly, but that’s mostly an issue of groundcover.
Decidedly OT, split is good.
In my neighbourhood, the parkland reserves are designed to provide wildlife corridors through the urban areas; you can generally hop from one neighbouring park to another all the way from the suburbs to the city.
The surviving forest remnants tended to be on whichever land was too steep to farm or build on, so they follow the watercourse gullies from the high ground to the harbour.
It’s mostly bird life that we’re concerned with preserving; the large mammals are already gone thanks to dogs and roadkill. Still a few 'roos out in the suburbs, though.
This is a long but amazing thread.
Good interviews here:
I am sure that this article will be well received.
Personally, I think R&M is brilliant. shows what I know…
More readable version:
(though the site is problematic, it isn’t Twitter and won’t break and punch you if you click outside the narrow middle.)