I wish I could write about the specifics of what happened today but it could cost me dearly so I can't. But the gist of it is that I went to an important event at school today and witnessed the most outrageous and offensive Q and A session ever in my lifetime. It taught me several things:
1. Do not assume that senior (white male) faculty have even a rudimentary understanding of race and feminist theory, or any appreciation for the importance and urgency of it
2. Be prepared to defend critical scholarship that examines such topics as feminism, race or post-colonial theory because some people consider such research to be "irrelevant"
3. There is a good chance that many people out there, even other scholars, will believe that my life's work is meaningless and unimportant
4. I'm going to need to be mentally prepared to deal with all this
Right now I'm just in so much shock that I don't even know what to do next.
3 comments:
don't forget the part about how feminists don't always give a shit about racism and i suppose POC don't always give a shit about feminism either. a huge native american scholar is being denied tenure by a women's studies department at a nearby institution even though she has like three books and thirty articles and is nearly worshipped.
academia is a bitch. btw, you know the person involved in this situation I just described.
what? i can't even think of any white males that we know in common.
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