A Little Rant about Academia (warning: dullness ahead)

I love my chosen profession, meaning I love research, teaching, discussing ideas with people who are very familiar with or completely new to my interests. I am passionately committed to helping young people expand their understanding and sharpen their minds, and I'm convinced that it's possible to make a tiny, but perhaps meaningful contribution to their lives as a college-level teacher.

But I hate some of the ideas that have crept into academia since the 1970s, at least in the realm of culture and its study. Because I study an obscure corner of the world, a lot of what I call the schlock work of history has yet to be done. And yet people--very, very nice people, mind you, whom I genuinely like--are giving papers on single phrases they heard from a couple of random people in 2007. Drawing sweeping conclusions based on two newspaper articles. Linguists and anthropologists can do this, apparently, padding their observations with theory that states the obvious in jargon terms. The kind of theory that's basically a form of log rolling for tenure.

This always irritates me. Not only am I very skeptical of most theory, which I think should be used to help us organize our evidence, not generate it, I am very bored with it. It seems so disconnected from what I feel is our actual mission as scholars: to bring information and new perspectives to as broad an audience as is feasible.

For instance, I don't know if post-colonial theory applies to Russia very well. I think you have to understand something about colonial administration on the ground before you can make that call. Moreover, you have to understand how the people on the ground at that time interacted with administrators (if they really have any power at all on the local level), their economic situation, cultural changes in the community, etc. Same goes for the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty, the last dynasty in China. The fact of the matter is, my anthro colleague in casual conversation felt comfortable drawing a conclusion on this front, while I didn't. My friend hadn't read a single original source from the era in question, just the theory and some secondary articles or something. Because we're dealing with an indigenous group, their history, their intellectual, cultural, and political achievements are invisible, irrelevant, static, and therefore don't require study.

I do what I do because I love the stories and people I've encountered. I always feel so sad when they are slighted. My work is historical, more or less, though based on culture and the arts, which means I can apply some anthro-type theory if necessary. But first and foremost, I see my task at the moment as getting whatever facts I can out there, in part because the narratives of the past have been highly distorted by politics, effectively erasing the achievements of an entire group of people. A lot of important documents and works of literature are only available in obscure languages, often written in obscure scripts.

I also feel a kind of resentment that my IF sisters will find familiar: The gently smoldering anger that comes from knowing that my bullshitting buddies will have a much easier time getting their wish than I will. In this case, that means finding a job, which will likely prove tough despite my skills, experience, and commitment to learning and teaching. That meaningless jargon equals jobs in many fields nowadays.

But in recognizing that anger, I feel somewhat liberated from it. I know I'm good, and I know that someone out there will appreciate that. It's just a matter of time. I thank you, if you've gotten this far, for reading my bitchy blathering.