'Klanderud's List'

[Keith GOERINGER]

I would like to add a few supporting points to Paul Klanderud's articulate
and, IMHO, depressingly accurate depiction of how academics are perceived.

>     We can't deny (I can't anyway), that among a lot of people, the study
>of literature (and the arts in general) has degenerated into the most
>useless sort of anti-humanistic and recondite blather intended to be
>comprehensible only to those who engage in its study.

The most blaring example of this that comes to my mind is the dissertation
(primarily because I am currently in the throes and thrall of mine...).  At
present, I have four descriptions of my topic.  One is for Slavists who are
linguists (and they get the thesis); one is for linguists who don't really
work in Slavic (who generally still get the thesis); one is for Slavists
who aren't linguists (who sometimes get the thesis); and one is for
non-Slavists and non-linguists.  (I often find myself ending this
description with a phrase like, "It's quite fascinating.  No, REALLY!")
(Then I profer the smelling salts.)

While part of the problem might just be with my topic (!), I think this is
an issue that everyone in our profession can relate to.  Sure,
dissertations are by nature beasts that inhabit a tiny corner of human
endeavor, and it is doubtful that any Slavist's dissertation (or article,
book, or whatever) will cure AIDS, stop wars, or balance the federal
budget.  And that sort of thing is, I think, what most people outside of
academia most readily relate to.

(As an aside, for the past few years, it has become "fun" for the press to
go to MLA and pick selected panel names or paper topics to print in the
papers.  I guess these go under the headings of "Those wacky
perfessers...", but they don't help public opinion much.  Perhaps in
retaliation, a bunch of Slavists could crash a journalists' convention and
mock their...oh wait, no one would *read* our mockery, outside of other
Slavists!)

>We can say this is an oversimplification, and it is. Or we can say that
>it's some perverse strain of anti-intellectualism dominating our
>Beavis-and-Butthead culture. And, as always, there's a bit of truth in
>everything. But it's been my experience that people who don't know the "nuts
>and bolts" of something (and I'm sure we could all think of fields about
>which we don't know a whole heck of a lot) tend to rely on what they've
>heard in the media, from friends and acquaintances, or simply from cultural
>lore.

Witness the media distortion syrrounding the whole Ebonics issue.  Those
linguists who have attempted to explain the logic behind Ebonics have in
most cases been ignored, or have had their explanation edited to the point
that it matches the reporter's own bias.  Even those who made extremely
cogent and careful reports to the press often suffered a similar fate.  (I
am writing this from the Bay Area, which is the source [Oakland,
specifically] for the current Ebonics debate.  You can imagine how much
local media coverage the issue got.)  The bottom line is, the public
doesn't see things the way we do.  What is important, or apparent, to us is
by no means that way to the average Joe (or Ivan, Jan, Jean, or whoever --
I'm sure this problem holds true, albeit to varying degrees, in much of the
world).  A linguist explaining the importance of Ebonics is dismissed as
being an ivory tower dweller who doesn't care that these poor kids would be
growing up speaking "bad" English.  And that "our tax dollars" would be
paying for it.

Regards,
Keith

Keith Goeringer
UC Berkeley
Slavic Languages & Literatures
keg at violet.berkeley.edu