12.0588 The Educated Imagination

Humanist Discussion Group (humanist@kcl.ac.uk)
Tue, 27 Apr 1999 19:44:05 +0100 (BST)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 12, No. 588.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 19:41:11 +0100
From: <nellac@HOME.COM>
Subject: Re: 12.0553 serious problem(s)

Humanist Discussion Group wrote:
>
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 12, No. 553.
> Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
> <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
> <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
>
> [1] From: Jim Marchand <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> (25)
> >
> [2] From: Anthony <anthony@ccs.sogang.ac.kr> (15)
> Subject: Humanities in danger?

Although this is not recent writing, I would
suggest that the argument in Northrop Frye's
Educated Imagination is as forceful as any
you will find. And, there is certainly
something which addresses social utility in
this work too.

With my sincere good wishes for success in
your campaign.
>
> --[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 20:49:13 +0100
> From: Jim Marchand <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
> Subject: retiring but not shy
>
> De te fabula narratur
>
> As Horace says, don't laugh. We have been talking about the tenure hassle,
> and it certainly is that. It is at the interfaces of life that the big
> traumas happen. Detenureification can also be traumatic. I am now going to
> wax personal, but as you see from my title it concerns you, too.
>
> I have just been notified by my supervisor that I must give up my office (up
> Hearts and Flowers, read Alcuin's farewell to his cell). Like many emeriti,
> I have an office filled with books, equipment, and in this case also a thin
> little wire which connects me to you. Like many emeriti, I looked forward to
> retirement and a chance to get some things done.
>
> This comes, naturally, at the worst time. The expense of setting up
> elsewhere is enormous. One simply has to change directions radically, give up
> such frivolities as Internet, downloading the Ante and Post-Nicene Fathers
> and Old Swedish, talking to colleagues, looking things up in books, etc.
>
> The point to all this is that I am telling a story which happens to most
> retiring professors, and it seems that those who are into the governance of
> universities have not addressed the problem. The retiring but not shy scholar
> finds him- or herself in the situation outlined above or an analogous one, at
> a time in life when _force vitale_ is dwindling, resources dwindling (sans
> everything, to quote the bard), but when he or she might do his or her
> (cannot persuade myself to use _their_) best work. As mankind gets older and
> older, there will be more of us in this situation, and the loss to
> scholarship could be enormous (I write in cliches).
>
> Anyway, forget about me. This is a problem which needs to be addressed.
>
> !
> Jim Marchand.
>
> --[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 20:49:27 +0100
> From: Anthony <anthony@ccs.sogang.ac.kr>
> Subject: Humanities in danger?
>
> This query is more related to Humanities than to Computing but I am not
> sure where else to address it. The Korean Government, like many others,
> is not showing much interest in funding research or teaching in the
> humanities at university level and seems to believe that universities
> should be wholly oriented toward socially 'useful' programs of a
> scientific or otherwise practical kind. English Departments are under
> pressure to provide nothing but conversation classes and 'introductions
> to daily life (if not 'business culture') in the US and UK'.
> I have been asked by colleagues here to find recently - published books
> or articles in English which might be quoted in submissions of opinion
> in support of the maintenance of some version of the traditional
> humanities college in the modern (21st- century) university. I would be
> most grateful if members of this list could indicate to me anything of
> the kind that they have found forceful.
> (Professor) An Sonjae
> English Dept, Sogang University, Seoul
>
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> Humanist Discussion Group
> Information at <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
> <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
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