An Open Letter to MLA Executive Director Rosemary Feal
Posted by johnacaseyjr in Higher Ed on November 21, 2011
UPDATE: I have removed from this letter two inappropriate analogies that compared the MLA’s failure to act directly on behalf of its non tenured members to citizens in Nazi Germany and Penn State during the sexual abuse scandal surrounding its football team. I apologize to both Rosemary Feal, Executive Director of the MLA, and Michael Berube, its First Vice President, for this needlessly inflammatory rhetoric. Neither comparison is justified. The rest of the argument stands awaiting an answer (12/06/2011).
I wrote this open letter in response to a spirited discussion that took place this Sunday between myself and MLA Executive Director Rosemary Feal via Twitter. Having worked in academia for some time, I hold no illusions as to the efficacy of my words. I wrote this open letter primarily because it was the right thing to do. Too many non-tenured faculty are silent out of fear. I refuse to keep living in darkness. Here is a little piece of light. Hic Placet.
An Open Letter to Rosemary Feal
Executive Director of the Modern Language Association
November 21, 2011
Director Feal:
On Sunday, November 20, we engaged in a spirited conversation via Twitter about the role of the Modern Language Association (MLA) in advocating for non-tenure track faculty. I claimed in my initial tweet that the organization was woefully behind the times and you asked me for specific examples to explain my position. To your initial inquiry, I replied with a list of requests, starting with a call for a change in attitude of tenure track faculty towards adjuncts and moving on to more tangible demands for equity of resources (i.e. computers and office space) and opportunities for professional development such as sabbatical leaves and the ability to design new courses. Your reply to my list of requests was that each item on it was a “university issue” and related to the “profession” more than the “organization” that is the MLA. Following this observation, you requested that I more fully articulate what I believed the MLA was not doing for its adjunct members. In your words, you asked me to tell you “what a scholarly/professional association like the MLA can do for its members.” I write this open letter to you in response to your request.
Perhaps the best place to begin is with your distinction between the university, the profession, and the MLA as a “scholarly/professional organization.” The way in which you reference these terms makes it unclear to me whether you believe these spheres overlap or are distinct regions within Higher Education. My impression from your tweets is that you view the MLA as a sacred space—distinct from the schools that employee its members and the disciplines it represents. As a long time student of the work of Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu, I cannot help but see such a distinction as a fallacy of the highest order. It is impossible to separate “the profession” from the organization that represents its many branches. Likewise it is not possible to separate the MLA as “a professional/scholarly organization” from the campuses where that organization’s goals are (at least in theory) expressed. These spheres are interlocking and mutually supportive. Together they have long worked to enforce the status quo in research, teaching, training, hiring, and disciplinary structure.
In response to my complaints about the MLA’s support of the status quo, you brought to my attention the work of the executive council, delegate assembly, and various committees of the organization such as that on “contingent labor” (a term that I despise for its dehumanizing connotations). You assert that great strides have been made in the last five years. As a member of the MLA for over a decade, I can assert that from the ground upon which I stand little seems to have changed for the better in the academic landscape. In fact, conditions have grown steadily worse. Every committee report and nonbinding resolution only signals for the other half of academia a reality that they as non-tenured faculty already knew. Statistics and statements mock rather than comfort. They suggest failure and futility rather than foster hope and innovation. What we (i.e. the non-tenured members of the MLA) need Director Feal is not another proclamation, study, discussion group, or committee. What we need now more than anything is action.
You rightly assert that the MLA cannot effect structural changes in Higher Education on its own. Individual members, particularly tenured members, and the schools in which they work must shoulder their part of the burden. However, the tone of your remarks resounds heavily with the ethos of “passing the buck.” “We at the MLA have done our part,” you imply, “Others have dropped the ball and let you down. Our hands are clean.” Somehow the MLA manages, in your view, to stand pure and whole in the middle of an ocean of dysfunction in which its members swim. Perhaps they receive a magic towel to dry themselves off when they enter the halls of 26 Broadway or preen on the convention floor.
The time is now Director Feal. The MLA must lead or be left behind. If the organization is up to the challenge, here are five suggestions from a member of its heretofore silenced majority. Five ways to take action on behalf of non-tenure track faculty rather than writing more speeches on their “condition”:
1. Leadership positions in the MLA must be made to more accurately reflect the heterogeneous nature of its membership. How is it that an organization of nearly 30,000 individual members has no community college faculty let alone non-tenure track faculty in its main governing body—the executive council? Standing committees on contingent labor and community colleges not only represent tokenism at its worst but have all the trappings of a ghetto for paying members who don’t fit the MLA’s desired type (i.e The Research One Tenured Professor).
2. There must be consequences for members both individual and institutional who do not abide by the already existing resolutions on academic labor. One reason that talk about the “condition” of non-tenure track faculty is cheap is the official words of the MLA come with no power of enforcement. The MLA needs to back its words with action. Any member (individual or institutional) who does not abide by existing MLA resolutions on labor and workforce conditions should face potential expulsion from the organization or sanctions preventing them from accessing organizational resources. Moreover, violators of MLA labor standards should be placed on a public list on the organization’s website and members should be warned not to engage in business of any kind with those institutions.
3. The MLA should learn from organizations such as HASTAC how to better incorporate alternative academic job paths into its convention and also its governance structure. They should additionally lobby member institutions for changes in educational practice to make graduate students at the MA and PhD level aware of these nontraditional paths and give them an opportunity to train for jobs other than that of college teaching or research. For those already in the non-tenured faculty pool, the MLA should create funds to help those interested in doing so to retrain.
4. The MLA must quit its stance of neutrality. At best it is acquiescence to the abuse of non-tenure track faculty and at worst it is complicit in the destruction of Higher Education. The organization must become more active politically. Its presence must be vocal and visible in the state capitals as well as Washington, D.C. If the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) can do this, why can’t the MLA?
5. There should be limits to the number of times that a member can consecutively publish materials in the organization’s publications or present papers at the annual convention. This would allow MLA members outside the upper tier to more actively take part in the scholarly activities associated with the organization. Fresh voices provide fresh perspectives. These in turn will allow the organization to change in order to meet the new exigencies of the twenty-first century.
Failure to take action will simply precipitate the decline of the MLA, which has become for many of its members no more than an acronym for a citation style and a place to interview for jobs. I am cautiously optimistic that having gained your attention some of my suggestions might be at least considered if not implemented. Whether this blessed outcome happens or not, I am nonetheless grateful to be noticed and taken seriously by a member of the Research One elite. As an adjunct faculty member I am, quite frankly, used to being ignored or used as an example of what can happen to a profligate graduate student. This letter offers me the opportunity to remind those in the inner sanctum of academe that I am not tenured but I am faculty. I don’t have books published by scholarly presses but I am an intellectual. I am unable to obtain a tenure track job but I am not a loser. I am you but for a twist of fate and your patronizing resolutions hurt more than simply being ignored.
In closing, I would like to acknowledge the reality that there are consequences for me writing this open letter. As a non-tenured professor, I could easily have my contract “not renewed” (a handy euphemism for being fired) at any time for any reason. I take this risk of perhaps losing my job on behalf of future generations of students (both undergraduate and graduate) as well as the inspiring non-tenure track faculty who increasingly teach them. I have known in my eleven years of teaching as a Graduate Instructor and Adjunct Professor so many non-tenure track faculty that have given so much of their time and effort while receiving so little in compensation or recognition from their schools and the professional organizations that ostensibly represent them. It is for this silent majority that I speak today. I hope my words meet their approval.
Respectfully Yours,
John Casey, PhD
Adjunct Professor of English
University of Illinois at Chicago
and
Columbia College Chicago
Are We Technology’s Killer Ap?
Posted by johnacaseyjr in Updates on November 8, 2011
After reading Cathy Davidson’s book Now You See It, a work that examines the potential of technology to reshape the ways in which we learn and work, I thought it would be beneficial to get the other side of the story. Sherry Turkle’s new book Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other provides a perspective that is vastly different from that of Davidson and other Digital Humanists who see technology as a way to enhance our humanness and connect with each other in more productive ways.
Turkle sees technology as a hindrance to meaningful human interaction. First examining humanoid robots and then exploring social media, she argues that what we are seeing in both instances is simply ourselves. Both the robot and our lists of “followers” or “friends” simply reflect back at us what we want to see. We are talking to ourselves and they (i.e. our electronic audience) applaud our performance. And, what’s more, on those occasions when we do receive a negative review they are easily unfriended or ignored.
The consequences of the shift in our emotional relationship to technology are far-reaching, according to Turkle. Most importantly, they remove mutuality from any discussion of human behavior. Everything we do is directed one way with little thought of the consequences or the response. The speed of communication also insures that thoughts will come and go as fast as leaves blowing in a strong wind. Reaction rather than sustained thought, acquaintance rather than true friendship are the rules of the day.
Turkle’s book is not meant to offer solutions to these problems but instead to outline them and offer an explanation as to their origin. On this latter point she is uniquely qualified as she has written two previous books on the connection between humans and technology–The Second Self and Life on the Screen. Turkle readily admits that she has grown increasingly pessimistic about technology as she written on the subject over time. In this third book she shows how humans have increasingly become more like machines even as machines have become more like us. Thus making the famous Turing test besides the point. We are all bots now, is the constant refrain of her text. In making this claim she shows an unlikely affinity to Neil Postman, the cranky humanist whose 1992 book Technopoly deftly outlined how humans had become the tools of their tools. Her conclusion seems to be that if more people feel the same concern she does, we will step back from the ledge and find ways to make technology work for us in ways that foster human interaction rather than mediate it.
As with Turkle’s two previous books on the subject, Alone Together is well researched. My only complaint involves the overall structure of the book, which is confusing at times. Her division of the text into one section on humanoid robots and another on social media feels artificial and makes the work appear to be two smaller texts stitched together. Additionally, there is a considerable amount of repetition in each chapter that suggests a need for more editing. The book could have been cut by at least 60 pages and still made its point effectively.
That said, Turkle’s book is worth reading by those who are suspicious about technology as well as those who embrace it with open arms. She leaves the reader much to think about and paints a damning portrait of how humans have let each other down while using technology as an excuse. One cannot help but think that Marx would approve.
“Thank God I’m Done with English.”
Posted by johnacaseyjr in Higher Ed on October 25, 2011
When you teach at one school for any length of time, you inevitably run into students wherever you go. This past Friday I was on my way to Greektown for a gyro and encountered a former student from my First Year writing course two semesters ago.
I don’t know about you but I always find these situations a little awkward at first. Most of these students I don’t see after they take my freshmen level courses. They go on to their various fields of study and I don’t have the opportunity to see them again. Consequently, I’m never really sure what to talk about.
In this case, I gravitated towards the predictable. “So what classes are you taking this semester? Are they going well?” As this student answered my utterly banal questions, she eventually blurted out “Thank God I’m done with English. Now I can get on to what I want to study.”
Being a long time teacher of the core curriculum at this school, which is universally required and almost as univerally reviled by students, I’m used to comments like these. I just laugh them off. What made me sad, however, was the grain of truth in what she was saying. My course would more than likely be the last “English” (i.e. writing) course that she would take in her college career. Admittedly she will have classes that require her to write, but never again will writing be a deliberate part of her instruction.
Perhaps this is just the English teacher in me speaking out, but I find this reality disgusting. Without any meaningful iteration, First Year writing courses are indeed what students claim–a waste of time. They jump through the hoop to make those in power happy and then go on their merry way. This attitude will not change until writing or more appropriately COMMUNICATION at ALL LEVELS of the curriculum and in ALL DISCIPLINES becomes a subject worthy of sustained attention. When we write, we communicate our ideas with others. If we can’t do this effectively, our ideas may as well not exist. If we can’t do this effectively, it is not the English teachers that have failed our students but those who feel that effective communication is the problem of a selected few.
Let’s hope that sometime in the future, students like that young lady mentioned above will see the global value of good communication and not cringe in fear of the “English” class.
Slavoj Zizek Speaks at UIC
Posted by johnacaseyjr in Updates on October 21, 2011
This afternoon Slavoj Zizek spoke to an overflow crowd at UIC. He was the fourth speaker to be invited as part of the semiannual Stanley Fish Lecture, sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the institute for the Humanities.
Zizek spoke in his characteristically passionate, digressive , and anecdotal style. His constant refrain was “if I only had more time.” With the time he had, Zizek managed to demonstrate for his listeners the necessity of looking for what is not there in our current discourse. This absence, he asserted, was a “determinate absence” that allowed the status quo to flourish. It was like “asking for coffee without cream,” he said, and instead being offered “coffee without milk.” When we become aware of the absence that rules our lives, only then, he argued, could meaningful change become possible.
The majority of what Zizek had to say about our current politics was a review of what he has said before. Perhaps the most provocative thing he had to say this afternoon was his comment to academics in the Humanities on their apologetic sense of status. Referring to Stanley Fish’s comment to an interviewer years ago that he was a “Milton Scholar,” Zizek exhorted academics to say such things publicly and with pride. For it is only through the efforts of the Humanities scholar to cultivate the imagination, he claimed, that the possible can be disentangled from all the things currently dismissed as impossible.
Even though most people already assumed as much, Zizek’s statement that “Communism as we knew it in the 20th century is dead..the movement is gone but the problem it addressed remains” is the final coffin nail for those looking to it for a strategic solution to the spread of Global Capital. If the world’s one-time preeminent supporter of Communism no longer believes in it, then Lenin has finally died. He did, however, call for us to take action on behalf of the “commons” which is currently under the relentless assault of neoliberals anxious to privatize the water we drink and the air we breathe. How exactly we do that remains to him as well as his listeners today a mystery. The possible it seems exists now in the small gesture–embodied by groups of disaffected, ordinary people standing outside banks with cardboard signs announcing their displeasure.
Zizek is a mesmerizing speaker and I could have listened to him speak for much longer than the hour and a half he was alloted. My only regret was the lack of preparation by UIC for the crowds who attended the lecture. The main hall was already full thirty-five minutes before the lecture and a small overflow room with a projector screen was all that was available for late arrivals. Even that space, however, was soon denied to listeners as fire marshalls declared the space over crowded and refused entry to the top floor of the student center to further spectators around ten minutes before the talk. It was not until I arrived and was directed to the overflow room that I was made aware of the live webcast of the talk that was available. In all honesty, if I had known about the webcast in advance, I would have watched the lecture from home. The image and sound quality on my computer is far superior to that of the projector screen that was made available to the overflow crowd. Clearly the Institute for the Humanities was caught of guard with the massive public response to this event. It showed in the lack of information provided to those arriving. Unless you asked, it was possible to mill about in the crowds out in the hall for hours without knowing what was going on. I only learned about the webcast and overflow room by directly asking a staff member from the institute whom I know from previous events. Apparently it was assumed that only UIC affiliates would attend. In this assumption, they misjudged.
C’est la vie. It all worked out in the end. Thanks Zizek for being you. A meaty fisted slayer of bullshit. If only more professors were like that.
“Now You See It.”
Posted by johnacaseyjr in Higher Ed on October 4, 2011
If you have not already read Cathy Davidson’s new book, you should be. It is the first positive discussion of the changes happening in Higher Education that I’ve seen in a long time. Davidson takes the words that scare the bejesus out of us tweed jacket types (i.e. “crowdsourcing,” “gaming,” “relevance,” “open source”) and puts them on the table for discussion in a bold but generous way. She encourages those reading her book to see it as a field guide to our new learning environment, which is still in the condition of becoming. Most importantly, however, she reminds us that as educators it is our duty to keep changing–to unlearn material that has caused us to stagnate and look to the emerging trends for clues to what lies around the corner. Could it be video games? I have no idea. Neither it seems does Cathy. But she deserves credit for asking the questions about what is truly wrong in academe that most have avoided and providing a few suggestions of how to overcome our current malaise/stagnation.
If you are in Chicago, Cathy Davidson will be speaking on the Future of the Humanities at the Chicago Humanities Festival on Saturday, November 5 at 11am at the UIC Forum. See the Chicago Humanities Website for more details. http://www.chicagohumanities.org/en/Genres/Public-Affairs/2011f-State-of-the-Humanities.aspx
Civil War POW Camp Discovered
Posted by johnacaseyjr in Civil War on August 19, 2011
Archaeologists have discovered a POW camp in southeastern Georgia that was briefly used to house Union soldiers. Since they had to leave in a hurry to flee the advance of Sherman’s army, a lot of interesting artifacts were left behind. If you’re interested, here’s a link to the article:
http://news.yahoo.com/archaeologists-comb-newly-found-civil-war-pow-camp-164121276.html
For those of you in Chicago. We had a POW camp here as well in the Bronzeville area: Camp Douglas. It housed Confederate POWs. No traces of the site itself remain. It was built over years ago. But a monument does exist at Oak Woods Cemetary to commemorate the many unknown dead from the camp, called Confederate Mound.
John A Casey Jr 