Political Differences with Potential Advisor

[thepriorwalter]

Internet forums are also sensitive to posting norms, which have slowly shifted as the more prolific application season posters have found less need of the board, thus allowing negative, and in some cases troll, voices to be amplified and define new standards of acceptable posting style.

ETA: as a new season picks up on the board, I believe it is possible for another good community to emerge.

Edited June 4, 2015 by thepriorwalter

[bhr]

No, it has nothing to do with the job market and everything to do with the trolling. Trolling sets me off any day of the week, especially when that trolling blames the humanities' lack of funding on its failure to accommodate a particular political agenda. 

 

But anyway, sorry for the snark. I'll curb it from now on. 

Except you are one of the people picking the fights. I actually agree with you on occasion, but you are overly dismissive and often just rude.

Personally, I lay a lot (if not most) of the blame on people who aren't active applicants (or even students) coming on here trying to "educate" us dumb grad students.

 

[heliogabalus]

Sheez, I was responding to one part of one post--that doesn't mean I fundamentally disagree with the advice that was given. I never thought that to comment on something on Gradcafe, I needed to address the entire thread. In my first post, I even quoted the remark I was responding to.

Look, the field I work with is translation, so Walter Benjamin is crucial, valuable, and fascinating, if somewhat impenetrable. While I am not a fan of political Marxism--I work in Central-Eastern Europe--I think Marxist theory is a great lens to read literature through. So, yes, I know that methodology does not equal politics and I know that you can work well with people whom you disagree with politically--as you should be able to.

 

Also, I do indeed lean more Democratic and I did support Obama.

 

But instead of dismissing me as a troll, consider that maybe I was actually trying to draw attention to something--that often in the liberal arts, liberal political leanings are expected, and conservative students can feel/be spurned. As Lifealive said of the Republican classmate: "his political views were a topic of discussion among grad students and professors alike." I think that is troubling.

In the last election, 47% of the voters voted Republican. Taking the stance that "not all political views are equal" risks alienating a sizable percentage of the students you teach. I don't think it's a good approach. I also think that there is something to the fact that the departments that are imperiled are often the ones that tend to be more hostile to conservative students. I think it makes it easier for universities to slash the budgets of those departments, when a large constituency feels unwelcome in them. It's certainly not the only reason. But I think that in addition to being seen as more employable, Economics and Engineering students are also a little less shocked about finding out that a classmate has a Romney (or Obama) bumper sticker than English and Comp Lit students.

Again, not a die-hard Republican, but I do think that teachers and professors should be understanding of students whose views are outside of the departments' norm.

[echo449]

I think for the most part, helio, that is the case. And I think your central concern is valid: how can we be as inclusive to various political identities as we try to envision politics of inclusivity (or class consciousness) in our work? But! Assuming lifealive was giving an accurate depiction of the circumstances he encountered, what kind of engagement is necessary in a situation where someone in the seminar room is loudly espousing a conservative politics if you're discussing, say, Said and cultural appropriation? I'm kind of imagining a situation not uncommon in undergrad courses--one where a particular student has rejected the basic premises of the discussion, and in a way that threatens to derail the concerns of everyone else in the room? 

I'm not trying to say that a conservative student should be banned from the seminar room, or treated with contempt for their beliefs. However, in this discipline especially we base a lot of work on what are, at root, political premises, and I don't think that there's an easy answer to the question of just where a conservative politics can express itself in literary studies. I'm not saying interpersonally; I'm talking about on the level of research. (And, I should add, the fact that I don't have a good answer to this is deeply troubling cuz it does go against the idea of intellectual openness that I have in my head.)

[lifealive]

Sheez, I was responding to one part of one post--that doesn't mean I fundamentally disagree with the advice that was given. I never thought that to comment on something on Gradcafe, I needed to address the entire thread. In my first post, I even quoted the remark I was responding to.

Look, the field I work with is translation, so Walter Benjamin is crucial, valuable, and fascinating, if somewhat impenetrable. While I am not a fan of political Marxism--I work in Central-Eastern Europe--I think Marxist theory is a great lens to read literature through. So, yes, I know that methodology does not equal politics and I know that you can work well with people whom you disagree with politically--as you should be able to.

 

Also, I do indeed lean more Democratic and I did support Obama.

 

But instead of dismissing me as a troll, consider that maybe I was actually trying to draw attention to something--that often in the liberal arts, liberal political leanings are expected, and conservative students can feel/be spurned. As Lifealive said of the Republican classmate: "his political views were a topic of discussion among grad students and professors alike." I think that is troubling.

In the last election, 47% of the voters voted Republican. Taking the stance that "not all political views are equal" risks alienating a sizable percentage of the students you teach. I don't think it's a good approach. I also think that there is something to the fact that the departments that are imperiled are often the ones that tend to be more hostile to conservative students. I think it makes it easier for universities to slash the budgets of those departments, when a large constituency feels unwelcome in them. It's certainly not the only reason. But I think that in addition to being seen as more employable, Economics and Engineering students are also a little less shocked about finding out that a classmate has a Romney (or Obama) bumper sticker than English and Comp Lit students.

Again, not a die-hard Republican, but I do think that teachers and professors should be understanding of students whose views are outside of the departments' norm.

 

As I thought was evident in my original post (but I guess not, and I should have taken more time to explain), this went beyond simply putting a bumper sticker on a car and admitting that you voted for a Republican. I've known plenty of more conservative grad students; few of them derailed discussions in class to make somewhat tasteless comparisons between Native Americans and the "natives" of Benghazi, or sent messages to the graduate student listserv gloating about election returns in certain districts. Really, no one cares about your political views if you're not aggressive about them. Like I said, the most brilliant person I know is a die-hard free market capitalist, and he's done just fine. I also know other people who quietly hold less popular views, and they've also gone through graduate school without incident. I do think that respecting the culture of an institution is important; for instance, I wouldn't take a job at an evangelical university and then advertise my atheistic tendencies to other professors and students. 

 

About not all political views being equal--yeah. I'm sorry, but if your party politics are premised on exclusionary practices or exploiting fears and insecurities about difference and diversity, then no, that's not okay. Ever. I worked for a public university; part of our mission is to educate all qualified residents. When a grad student holds these views about the very students we're there to educate (Muslims, Native Americans, etc.), it's not alright, and it doesn't get to fall under the umbrella of "respecting political difference." That's all I meant.

 

I didn't mean to imply that the OP was this kind of person, or that their concerns fell in the same camp, but hey, you never know. I just decided to share an anecdote as a kind of cautionary tale.

Edited June 5, 2015 by lifealive