I was at a reading the other day by a famous writer with a good vita who is writing every day but declared he would not rush his book. He also said he had never submitted for publication anything he thought he could still improve upon. This attitude has not kept him from publishing but … More High Degrees of Perfection
Bonjour, toi, et bonne semaine! As the sun moves into Scorpio and the Indian summer fades our work week for this term will reduce itself to 84 hours, shrinking with the year. Our sensibilities may not be as fine as those of some exquisite sufferers, but we are still the most beautiful of all professors. … More Bonjou’, toi
The reason life in my main subunit was unstable and underdeveloped in those days was not because it was culturally Mediterranean but because we were a colonized people. If I had time I would study our political culture with dependency theory. I am betting the analysis would be apt, illuminating, and amusing. The subunit was … More A New Use for Dependency Theory
I realize how harsh this whole series of posts sounds but remember, this is not an academic blog or an advice blog, it is my after hours blog, and I am a sculpted skull on a stela at Copán. And in this particular performance of life I have been exhorted for decades about how difficult … More The End of Difficulty, and That Wolf at the Door
My family will be on the street if I cannot place this manuscript! is the place that primordial research fear comes from and I understand it very well — likely better than you know. Still I want to say that when I started to hear that anti-research drumbeat — you should not be interested in … More Et encore…
All right, here are the characteristics one must have as a professor, from what I have been told since age three, when I chose my PhD program, but especially since age thirty, when I finished it. A true professor must have: – Boredom with research, dislike of writing, difficulty publishing, yet great activity in these … More What is Hard for Me
What if those who say they are having such a hard time with research and writing and suffering so greatly, are faking it completely? What if the ones who want me to use my blog space to discuss suffering even more than I already do, alleging that only in this way can I convince the … More Another Theory…
So it would be my bad luck to run into one of our newer faculty members last night, who wanted to go on at me further about how bad the freshmen and sophomores are, and I said: Look, I understand your feelings and I share them, but this issue is not something I think about … More On Venting and Spouting
Rigoberta Menchú famously said that her story was “not sad, because true” and although it has been alleged that what she says is not true, which is another matter, I say research is not difficult, for Menchú’s reason: it is true. Research is not difficult; to the contrary, it facilitates everything. It means you are … More Further Arguments for Research – and College
It is agreed, then: research and writing are not hard, if you are trained for them. The much harder aspects of academic work are: – dealing with anti intellectualism from various quarters – dealing with gender discrimination which is much more extreme in certain kinds of schools and also families – the backbreaking labor of … More That Administrative Answer
coldhearted scientist وداد 