Psychoanalysis and my senior thesis

[Inna Caron]

Dear Chris and Deborah -

First of all, you guys are great for being so supportive and protective
of the aspiring undergrads. But I also know of several other people here
who respond to virtually every undergraduate inquiry - often off-list -
so let's just save this topic for another discussion, as it probably
merits one.

Second, I am not a professor, and as far as I know, neither is Evgeny.
He mentioned working on his dissertation in regards to Vronsky's
finances. I am also working on mine while teaching undergraduate
classes, and as a scholar and a teacher I would never make fun of
curious and inspired students - either mine or someone else's. I believe
most people on this list wouldn't.

Now, with those disclaimers made, I want to narrow this down to one
single point: it seems that the John Reed/John Vit post was in jest, and
as such it evoked a jocular response. Frankly, the fact that the author
has picked The Igor Tale causes me to suspect intentional fallacy :)
If, however, it was in earnest, and John (whatever his last name is)
finds our comments offensive, I'll be quick to apologize. 

Let's just ask the author to come out and speak for himself.

Best regards,

Inna Caron



-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of Chris Tessone
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 3:55 PM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Psychoanalysis and my senior thesis

Deborah brings up a good point.  I certainly felt marginalized more or
less every time I contributed an opinion on SEELANGS whiel an
undergraduate.  I was one of the students she describes--seriously
interested in the field, wrote an Honors thesis (though it was not a
graduation requirement in our program), etc.  This community seems
incredibly scornful of eager undergrads (with several very notable
exceptions who entered into long and edifying email conversations with
me during that time).

Whether the original posting was a satire or in earnest, I would
encourage SEELANGers to consider their tone when addressing undergrads
and even grad students in the list.  I chose to leave Slavics
altogether and pursue another career in part because I didn't want to
go to grad school and study with professors like the ones I'd
interacted with on this list.  Food for thought--how would you feel if
your advisees were subjected to the treatment you put undergrads at
other schools through?

Cheers,
Chris

On 3/28/06, Deborah Hoffman <lino59 at ameritech.net> wrote:
> Uvazhaemye SEELANGovtsy,
>
> While I understand the humor frequently associated
> with Freud and Freudianism, nonetheless I'd like to
> proffer a few thoughts for consideration by those in
> academia:
>
> --What has undergraduate enrollment (where grad
> students come from) in Slavics/Russian been like of
> late?  What effect might that have on the future of
> your departments?
> --How many of your undergraduates are actually writing
> a senior thesis in order to graduate?
> --How many of them are doing it in Slavics or Russian
> literature?
> --How many of your undergraduates could even name 12
> heroes in Russian literature?  How many of them could
> tell you the plot of Slovo o polku Igoreve with enough
> familiarity to attempt an interpretation?  When I
> graduated from Indiana (with honors, though sans
> senior thesis which was not offered) we'd spent
> exactly 55 minutes on anything that came before
> Pushkin.
> --How many of your undergraduates read SEELANGS?
> --How many of your undergraduates would take the time
> to solicit scholarly input from a wide body of people
> before deciding to proceed with a topic?
> --Is making light of a serious inquiry by an obviously
> engaged and motivated undergraduate, rather than
> redirecting or shaping if you believe the topic
> ill-chosen, really the best approach under the
> circumstances?  Friendly ribbing among colleagues of
> roughly equal station being another matter entirely,
> of course.
>
> Of course, if the felicitously named John Reed turns
> out to be a sockpuppet, I will be quite abashed :-)
>
> Deborah Hoffman
> Finance Chair, Graduate Student Senate
> Modern and Classical Language Studies
> Kent State University
> http://users.ameritech.net/lino59/index.htm
>
> Stop the Genocide in Darfur:
> http://www.savedarfur.org/
>
>
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--
Chris Tessone
http://chris.tessone.net/

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