What is a Phillip Roth?

\ Leave a Comment \ by

I’m not sure why I find this so entertaining, but I just found an article by Phillip Roth, “AN OPEN LETTER TO WIKIPEDIA” in which he complains that he cannot control his own Wikipedia article. “I understand your point that the author is the greatest authority on their own work,” writes the Wikipedia Administrator—“but we require secondary sources.”  I think the Foucault of  “What is  an Author”? is spinning in his grave somewhere.

Wikipedia falsely claims, Roth says, that  the Human Stain is “allegedly inspired by the life of the writer Anatole Broyard.” In fact, Roth says, the novel is based on “an unhappy event in the life of my late friend Melvin Tumin, professor of sociology at Princeton…”  The Wikipedia article, to make this debate even more post-modern, has already been changed, neatly folding the debate into the text, like egg white in a souffle.  Here’s the new entry:

Roth was motivated to explain the inspiration for the book after noticing what he referred to as a “serious misstatement” in the Wikipedia entry on The Human Stain. His request to have the entry amended was prevented by Wikipedia policy because he did not have a secondary source for his inspiration. Roth was responding to comments in the article referring to reviews by Michiko Kakutani, Lorrie Moore, Charles Taylor, and Brent Staples, who had all stated in their reviews that the book was “partly inspired by the late Anatole Broyard”, a writer and New York Times literary critic.

It’s a battle between the literary (print) and the collective (digital) forms of authorship and I think Roth is the looser. In traditional terms, the Wikipedia people have good evidence. Even if Roth didn’t consciously draw on Broyard,  a handful of smart people see a  strong connection that Ross himself could have missed. Ross’s argument is a little silly; he says, roughly, “I knew Tumin much better than I knew Broyard. Since I didn’t know Broyard well, I couldn’t write about him.”  That hardly seems conclusive, much less persuasive.

What Roth seems to miss is that Wikipedia has a different model of authority and author. A Wikipedia entry, Foucault might say, “is valorized without any questions about the identity of [its] author.”  Unlike a folk-tale or a myth, though, the validity of the entry rests on a institutional rather than historical process. In part, Ross is confusing apples and oranges. “The same types of texts have not always required authors,” Foucault notes, although “literary works are totally dominated by the sovereignty of the author.” Not so much, now.

Posted in: Language, Writing

I Am Professor Staff

\ Leave a Comment \ by

As “Who is Professor Staff?” makes clear, the majority of teachers in higher education are not only contingent faculty but are part-time contingent faculty.  Moreover, a majority of those the Center surveyed taught at more than one college or university, some taught in several institutions.  This prevalence of part-time faculty is not simply an effect of the overwhelming predominance of two-year community colleges–over half of the respondents taught at a four-year institution (even if in addition to a two-year institution)…. Despite the common perception of higher education populated with tenured and tenure-track faculty it is the reality of contingent and part-time faculty that is the dominant fact in the labor system of higher education.  Reliance on contingent faculty is also the prime mechanism through which university and college managers have sought to cut instructional labor costs.  And, of course, this point does not even address the  importance of Graduate Student Instructors at the university level.

“Back to School…If They Need You” Michael Meranze

Last week, during the Republican Convention, NPR aired a brief set of interviews with convention attendees, one of whom seemed to have an almost visceral hate for Barak and Michele Obama. “I just don’t like him.” She said of the president. “Can’t stand to look at him. I don’t like his wife – she’s far from the First Lady. It’s about time we get a First Lady in there who acts like a First Lady and looks like a First Lady.” You can hear her here thanks to the Democratic Underground.

It’s hard to know what could have upset this woman so much (maybe it’s the hoola hoop thing).  This is white supremacy at its most instinctual, the profound disgust felt when non-whites, inherently inferior, gain power and influence. This woman must be livid because I Michelle Obama’s speech last night was one of the most moving I have ever seen at a convention, every bit the equal of her husband. In some ways, I think her speaking style is more engaging than the president.

I do see myself, my family,and the people I know in her story, even if she’s far too successful now to be fully familiar. A few years back, Barack Obama wrote a bestselling book, and then another, and they left  the world of ordinary financial life behind. She was already a successful hospital administrator. What I don’t yet hear in these  stories is my profession, outlined in the report, “Who is Professor Staff?”    Still, reelecting Obama is the only chance for that story to be ever heard in the White House.

Posted in: Economics, Online Places, Professional, Writing

Brothers from Other Suburbs

\ Leave a Comment \ by

The CTU [Chicago Teachers Union] wants a proportional pay raise for the longer work day. The union is also calling for smaller class sizes, an increase in wraparound services like school nurses and social workers, and arts and music in all Chicago schools.

The board, however, has refused to engage on quality of education issues. The city says it lacks money to fairly compensate teachers for increased hours. Instead, the board has offered only 2 percent raises for the first two years of the contract. After that, it wants merit pay with evaluations based on student test scores. The city is also trying to get rid of contractual increases for education and experience.

CTU has noted that the city gives nearly $250 million every year in tax abatements to well-connected developers.

“Saying It’s Not about the Money, Chicago Teachers Inch Closer to Strike,” Theresa Moran, July 18, 2012

Labor Day signals the start of the (really) silly season, as the  presidential campaigns swing into high gear. Meanwhile, in the land of reality can expect party hi-jinks to generate yet another wave of both parties are equally terrible laments. The CTU’s ongoing struggles with Mayor Emmanuel, shows why this is such a tempting position. This piece, by Ben Joravsky, where I stole my title, shows that on key public school issues, there’s just not much difference between Democratic and Republican policy.

Some liberals seem to love charter schools– it’s their own version of the broader market/competition religion/delusion– and too often they grow myopic when they get their hands on the newest reform idea. (Here’s a nice piece on how the charter schools, which are in fact no better in general than pubic schools, play the numbers game to make their programs seem more effective than they are.) They decide that a longer school day is a good idea but then forget that this puts a burden on teachers.

The CTU, meanwhile, seems to be making a lot of sense. Given the “hard times” it seems smart to shut down some of those business subsidies– to cite one example–and use the money to get back to basics, as it were, by making sure that all schools have good arts programs and services like nurses. If you increase the amount of work someone does– say, by lengthening the work day– then you should pay for it. This would be investing in the local economy in the best possible fashion.

These similarities are a problem mostly because presidential elections are almost always so close. The entire fight, in the next several weeks, will be over the 3 or 5% of people whose minds might be changed.  If those “both parties are equally bad” messages dampen down the Democratic vote,  even if by only a few percentage points, we might end up with those House Republicans setting public policy back decades.  So we have to ask ourselves if it matters that there’s so much overlap.

There’s still a lot of difference.  Democrats are comfortable with birth control and the Roe v. Wade compromise and Planned Parenthood. I’m going to vote Democrat, though, mostly because if people start getting organized and fighting back, I would rather have Rahm Emanuell, who wants to curb union power, across the table, than Scott Walker, who wants to wipe them off the face of the earth. We can push the Democrats into reality; the Republicans are likely to just shoot everyone and let God sort it out.

Posted in: Writing