This morning I came across Michael Berube’s response to Jodi Dean’s critique of Berube’s book What’s Liberal about the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and Bias in Higher Education… It is a fascinating interchange worthy of a close read or two but without first-hand knowledge of the book, I hesitate to pledge my allegiance on either side. But I will hopefully to do so. The only thing that surprised me was that there was no mention of the grand master of the critique of liberalism, Stanely Fish… Not sure why but he seems like an obvious place to start.
These ppst happened to really captured my attention this morening given I found them after reading the Chronicle of Higher Education piece Input or Intrusion? which examines the recent attacks against scholars deemed as “anti-Israel/pro-Palestine,” including against Nadia Abu El-Haj who happened to be on my dissertation committee… It will be very interesting to see how this all pans out and I am sure many of us are watching closely.
And as an added bonus, here is a student’s thoughtful perspective on the Berube book.