Forced labour was a big part of it, but there's also simple logistics. The Nazis were killing so many people that the gas ch ambers and crematoriums would routinely break down from the strain.
What's wrong with the Ivy Schools nowadays!?!
- Thread starter Gen.Mannerheim
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At least Christopher Browning has tenure at UNC Chapel Hill and seems to enjoy working there.
On that note, Dennis Showalter speaks German with this heavy North Dakotan accent. It's genuinely hilarious.
ParkCungHee
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Honestly, I cannot even imagine my reaction if Chris Browning couldn't get tenure.
...couldn't get tenure while Daniel Goldhagen has an Ivy League post.
Well, he made babies with a black person.
So did Thomas Jefferson.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Sry for the bump-- that's hella true, but it's been hella true since the 1980s. My whole field was, until the great recession, a bunch of progressives (who were progressive in part because the field showed them why to be!) who were stumbling over themselves to credit the most right wing stuff they could.
It's the same as Obama being Reagan's biggest fanboy.
aelf
Ashen One
I thought it was fairly common knowledge to all but the most obtuse and intellectually dishonest that you don't have to go to a 'good' school to get a good education. Whether you receive good education probably depends more on your instructor than on the institution you attend. No, one does not go to an Ivy League school for good education; one goes there for the brand name, which is often very useful in this world of ours.
Gori the Grey
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There's one other thing that I think could be in the mix, and it would put a more positive spin on the matter than most of the comments so far.
Through the eighties and nineties, humanities fields in the U.S., influenced by academic trends in France, went in altogether the opposite direction. Professors wrote only for one another, in a jargon-laden, often impenetrable, indeed often deliberately obtuse, mandarin.
Many contemporary humanists who lived through that period regret its excesses, and have set themselves the project of treating the material in their fields in ways that are accessible to the common reading public, of being "public intellectuals" as the ambition now goes.
Ironically, it's now more likely to be the professor at Colorado State than the one at Harvard who still writes in that old only-for-the-initiated form. Being able to present your ideas in ways that the common reader can understand is now seen as a test that you're actually saying something, not just playing onanistic language games.
Through the eighties and nineties, humanities fields in the U.S., influenced by academic trends in France, went in altogether the opposite direction. Professors wrote only for one another, in a jargon-laden, often impenetrable, indeed often deliberately obtuse, mandarin.
Many contemporary humanists who lived through that period regret its excesses, and have set themselves the project of treating the material in their fields in ways that are accessible to the common reading public, of being "public intellectuals" as the ambition now goes.
Ironically, it's now more likely to be the professor at Colorado State than the one at Harvard who still writes in that old only-for-the-initiated form. Being able to present your ideas in ways that the common reader can understand is now seen as a test that you're actually saying something, not just playing onanistic language games.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I don't think that's a fair generalisation. Some did, sure, but most didn't, let alone just "professors, generally".
Gori the Grey
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Enough that I think it's part of the motivation for the trend that the OP laments.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
What it seems you're saying is that it got too advanced and so there was a blowback populated by the work of those who are less advanced.
Gori the Grey
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Well, I wouldn't use the word "advanced," in the first case or "less advanced" in the second. For the past, I'd say "(largely needlessly) over-complicated." And, at least in the field I know best, the field of literary criticism, the same guy who's part of the blowback, Greenblatt, was the discipline leader back in the day (though even then he was less obscurantist than most). Now, he and others like him will have a second reason for bothering to write for a general audience. They believe literature and literary criticism should be agents of political change. And they got to thinking, "Hey, if no one can understand our stuff, how is it going to make any difference?"
The OP (and remember, this is a resurrected thread) was lamenting that scholars who had previously been more advanced were now writing less advanced books. I'm sure it's for all the reasons given. But some of these people have won all the renown they'll ever need in their disciplinary circles, and can now afford to reach out to the hoi polloi.
The OP (and remember, this is a resurrected thread) was lamenting that scholars who had previously been more advanced were now writing less advanced books. I'm sure it's for all the reasons given. But some of these people have won all the renown they'll ever need in their disciplinary circles, and can now afford to reach out to the hoi polloi.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I'm going to hazard this might be why you're over-stating the prevalence of post-modern jargon.
aelf
Ashen One
Personally, I agree with the sentiment. But it's not like the hard analytical and pseudo-positivist schools prevalent in the Anglosphere are not without their problems. There, atomisation and over-specialisation too are always threatening to create ivory towers. In fact, they regularly do.
And there are gems in the other so-called Continental tradition that are simply junked by some people over stylistic differences.
caketastydelish
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You are so racist, half your posts complain about white people in some way or form. If you did that for any other group you wouldn't get away with it. Please stop. Not all white people are bad. You chose to live in Australia and then you have to deal with a lot of white people. Whose fault is that
You are so racist, half your posts complain about white people in some way or form. If you did that for any other group you wouldn't get away with it. Please stop. Not all white people are bad. You chose to live in Australia and then you have to deal with a lot of white people. Whose fault is that
White people's, actually. Masada's people are actually indigenous to the region; white people are not.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I dunno, white people can be pretty terrible. We've got a bad history, y'know? And, at least collectively, we're pretty bad at dealing with it.You are so racist, half your posts complain about white people in some way or form. If you did that for any other group you wouldn't get away with it. Please stop. Not all white people are bad. You chose to live in Australia and then you have to deal with a lot of white people. Whose fault is that
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