20070326

Why I shouldn't post before reading

So roscivs has a salient post about the problem of not enough mathematics in programming, to which I've added the following:

As odd as it might be to hear this, it's nice to see that English isn't the only department with these sorts of problems, and that the whole university system is feeling the "be useful and make things we can sell" push.

The problem is similar: in the department, we have people who study literature (and are thus armed with a lot of abstruse cultural and literary theory) and the people who create literature (and are thus armed with, er, so far as I can tell, pens). In addition, there's a major trend toward separation, putting the writers in one section and the theorists into a melange of "cultural studies." While I support interdisciplinary education—indeed, one of the best courses I took was team-taught by scientists, cultural theorists, historians and literary critics—the point was cross-pollination; the departments remained discreet, and what you were studying was added to by the intercession of these new voices. Making "interdisciplinary" the norm will set up new boundaries, similar to those you described between mathematics and programmers, that are no better than the "isolated department" scheme of the 1950's.


And I mean it. Taking a post somewhere as the "(Late) Medieval Cultural Studies" professor isn't going to be helpful to me or my students: I'm teaching history, social theory, archeology, and half a dozen other things I wasn't prepared to teach and really can't. The point is that there should be boundaries, across which you occasional sally, make a lecture or five, and come home. Tea with the historians, maybe an afternoon over in psychology, but you should always have your own department to come home to.

That said, of course, I'm in no position to complain, and a very large position to beg. If you're a prospective hiring university and found this blog, I love you very much and will teach however you want; I'm perfectly willing to try anything for five years and two books, and won't complain until tenure. Please?

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