dispatches from TJICistan

This is a bit long, but read it all:

http://garysullivan.blogspot.com/2008/05…

DICKINSON PSYCH PROFESSOR DENIED TENURE- “FLARF” CITED AS REASON

It sounds like some fake news story I’d write for a laugh, but unfortunately, this is all too real.

Last month, during his tenure review at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, cognitive psychologist and Assistant Professor of Psychology Richard Abrams was denied tenure. The basis for denial as it appeared in the dean’s summary was that the English department, specifically the chair, Carol Ann Johnston, and the poet-in-residence, Adrienne Su: “expressed the opinion that you have been … advancing the interests of Flarf over other poetry initiatives at the College.”

Apparently, tenure can be blocked by departments completely unrelated to your own for reasons having to do with advancement of a particular art movement.

Abrams curated the Genessee Pomfret Reading Series, which, while it did host The Flarflist Collective, also brought out Brian Kim Stefans, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Kirsten Kaschock, CA Conrad, Frank Sherlock, Betsy Wheeler, Dorothea Lasky, Laura Solomon, Sandra Miller, Ben Doyle, Dana Ward, and the Dusie Collective–none of them related to flarf in any way. During the same two-year period, the English department brought a single poet, Rita Dove.

Abrams is a popular teacher (he gets consistently glowing ratings on ratemyprofessor.com), and given that his department is Psychology, it is astounding that the opinions of anyone in the English department had any bearing on a decision regarding tenure.

But Abrams’ series was noticed in a way that not much else, reading-wise, at this college had been; as Ron Silliman noted on his blog, “Carlisle is not necessarily where you’d expect the best big poetry event of the fall to occur. But there you have it. On Saturday, the Flarf & Dusie collectives will kick out the jams big time at Dickinson College.”

It’s tough to say whether Johnston or Su actively blocked Abrams’ tenure as part of a turf war, or if they see flarf as a genuinely threatening presence. Perhaps a little of both.

Whatever the case, a very popular professor with the strongest record of scholarship and research in the Psych department was literally denied tenure, at least according to the dean’s summary, on the grounds of “advancing flarf” to the apparent displeasure of the English department. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t true, if it didn’t involve someone’s livelihood and academic future.

Wow. I knew that the academic infighting in engineering and sciences put things pretty darned far from “dispassionate advancement of human knowledge”, but that’s a schoolyard spat compared to the Cambodianesque vicious and inane total war of the conflicts that the humanities get themselves into.

A psychology prof not only does a great job in his own department, but he also puts the English department to shame on their home turf … so they stab him in the back (likely with the complicity of the psychology department).

Wow.

Comment:

http://garysullivan.blogspot.com/2008/05…

… I have a friend who teaches at such a small college, and she actually thinks she has to go out to the local pub with the rest of the junior faculty every Friday night, or else it will hurt her professionally. Sounds like hell to me…

Small vicious bitchy cliques are the main thing that turns me off of SF fandom, academia, Wikipedia, various nonprofits, and a host of other ways of organizing people into groups.

I know that some folks are going to take the following statement as grist for their pop-psychology mills and paint me as either a craven puppy or a closet Nazi, but one thing that I really like about three particular cultures it’s been my pleasure to be a part of (the military, football teams, and small hungry startups) is that (a) there is a crisp hierarchy; (b) because the hierarchy is not ambiguous, fighting over the hierarchy is not an option, and everyone gets on with the work of accomplishing some external goal.

I can take being number 2 in an organization (or number 92) if it’s clear what the goals are.

I can also take being the lead in an organization if it’s clear what the goals are.

In both cases, the task at hand is to buckle down and make things happen.

On a tangential note: what’s up with those t-shirts that say “if you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes” ?

In my experience, folks who I’d categorize as “lead dogs” never wear those t-shirts. …Meaning that the folks who wear them are either aspirational dressers (if someone wearing a t-shirt with a slogan and a picture of a dog can be thusly categorized), or are confused about their location in the dog team. …and either one strikes me as somewhat sad.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 8:10 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.