the_lady_lily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_lady_lily) wrote2007-05-09 10:56 pm
the_lady_lily) wrote2007-05-09 10:56 pm
Entry tags:
Bibliography
Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University – William Clark
I picked this up after reading the review in the New Yorker, mainly out of interest. I have to say, I'm not entirely convinced. The plan is, through tracing the history of the German research university, to chart the developments of what our expectations are of successful academics, and how German bureaucracy formed that through its desire for 'results'. As G said, 'agenda, much?'. But, actually, in the main, Clark is pretty good about keeping the agenda under control, and does back up what initially sounds like a real 'red tape is bad' tub-thump with solid evidence.
Essentially, the general swing of the book is that Germany's growing system of local government wished to have power over academic institutions, including the sorts of people who were hired and on what merits. They wanted to guarantee that courses were being taught when they were supposed to be taught, that lecturers were turning up when they were supposed to, that people didn't up and off when they weren't meant to. They also wanted to have people in the German university who had Fame - which was shown by the number of publications that an individual had to their name. It was quite refreshing to realise that the 'publish or perish' dictum was in evidence already by the 1700s. Similarly, lecturers were praised for the amount of applause they got from students - that is, the popularity of the lecturer and the amount of paper produced were more important than the quality of the actual work.
It's all terribly interesting, only slightly marred by Clark's irritatingly personable and jaunty tone at points, and his axe to grind with the American scientific research establishment in the final chapter. I'd definitely recommend it as a useful pause for thought for anyone going up for tenure - or, indeed, the PhD examinations, as Clark does a brilliant job of dissecting and recreating what it was like to get one's degree from Oxford, Cambridge and the German institutions earlier on, and quite frankly it sounds bloody terrifying. But you need some interest in the field to justify picking it up, otherwise you're going to get very bored very quickly.
Kleist - Penthesilea
This is a sodding marvellous play. People don't read Kleist enough, and I am so doing a read-through of this when back in the UK. The general plot is a re-write of the Achilles/Penthesilea love story by Kleist, who was (quite frankly) insane. In this version, the Amazons have turned up to bring back men for their love feasts, but it all goes horribly wrong and Penthesilea a) has a forbidden pash for Achilles and b) ends up tearing him to pieces with her dogs, Acteon/Diana style. In some ways, it's incredibly poncy in a 'look at me, I'm a German in the 18th century inserting myself into the pedigree of the Classical canon!', but in other ways it's a beautifully written and quite marvellous play. Very fond of this indeed, and have put Kleist's letters on The List for future reading.
Trial by Fire, or Katie of Heilbron
This is the companion piece to Penthesilea; Kleist himself wrote that Pentheilea and Katie were the positive and the negative of femininity. That, I think, is a bit much. Trial by Fire isn't as strong a play as Penthesilea, but it is good fun - it's all romantic magical fairy story with hermenutical cruxes and people having illegitimate children and, quite possibly, a man in drag or a hemaphrodite, although the textual evidence is mute about the actual problem. There's a dream which leads people to their true love, and manipulation, and plotting, and broken engagements, and kidnaps, and Emperors having it off with cottagers' wives, and lots of repressed sexuality, and a secret underground court... yes, it all gets a bit silly. But, again, it would be a fabulous text to do a read-through of, and someone remind me I said this when I'm trying to work out housewarming materials ;) And, again, everyone should read Kleist.
Bettine von Arnim - The Life of High Countess Gritta von Ratsinourhouse
Gritta was the final text for the German seminar, the only one we actually got around to reading written by a woman, composed in the early 1840s and never actually published, and very interesting it was too. It's technically a fairy tale, and it's quite easy to just read through it as candyfloss without paying too much attention. But at the same time, there is a lot of very socially subversive commentary (an exceptionally overt criticism of the monarchy, for example, as well as a whole range of critique of women's roles in life) and some quite interesting uses, of all things, of Plato's allegory of the Cave, which I very much enjoyed reading and need to spend a little more time with. The tale essentially follows the Robinson Crusoe finding a new land and creating an ideal community pattern, albeit without the rabid colonialism, with a community of girls led by High Countess Gritta von Ratsinourhouse eventually founding their own little convent in the middle of the woods - except for poor old Gritta, who has to go off and marry a dim prince. A very dim prince.
I am keeping this on the bookshelf to read to any small people who come my way. It's absolutely beautiful.
I picked this up after reading the review in the New Yorker, mainly out of interest. I have to say, I'm not entirely convinced. The plan is, through tracing the history of the German research university, to chart the developments of what our expectations are of successful academics, and how German bureaucracy formed that through its desire for 'results'. As G said, 'agenda, much?'. But, actually, in the main, Clark is pretty good about keeping the agenda under control, and does back up what initially sounds like a real 'red tape is bad' tub-thump with solid evidence.
Essentially, the general swing of the book is that Germany's growing system of local government wished to have power over academic institutions, including the sorts of people who were hired and on what merits. They wanted to guarantee that courses were being taught when they were supposed to be taught, that lecturers were turning up when they were supposed to, that people didn't up and off when they weren't meant to. They also wanted to have people in the German university who had Fame - which was shown by the number of publications that an individual had to their name. It was quite refreshing to realise that the 'publish or perish' dictum was in evidence already by the 1700s. Similarly, lecturers were praised for the amount of applause they got from students - that is, the popularity of the lecturer and the amount of paper produced were more important than the quality of the actual work.
It's all terribly interesting, only slightly marred by Clark's irritatingly personable and jaunty tone at points, and his axe to grind with the American scientific research establishment in the final chapter. I'd definitely recommend it as a useful pause for thought for anyone going up for tenure - or, indeed, the PhD examinations, as Clark does a brilliant job of dissecting and recreating what it was like to get one's degree from Oxford, Cambridge and the German institutions earlier on, and quite frankly it sounds bloody terrifying. But you need some interest in the field to justify picking it up, otherwise you're going to get very bored very quickly.
Kleist - Penthesilea
This is a sodding marvellous play. People don't read Kleist enough, and I am so doing a read-through of this when back in the UK. The general plot is a re-write of the Achilles/Penthesilea love story by Kleist, who was (quite frankly) insane. In this version, the Amazons have turned up to bring back men for their love feasts, but it all goes horribly wrong and Penthesilea a) has a forbidden pash for Achilles and b) ends up tearing him to pieces with her dogs, Acteon/Diana style. In some ways, it's incredibly poncy in a 'look at me, I'm a German in the 18th century inserting myself into the pedigree of the Classical canon!', but in other ways it's a beautifully written and quite marvellous play. Very fond of this indeed, and have put Kleist's letters on The List for future reading.
Trial by Fire, or Katie of Heilbron
This is the companion piece to Penthesilea; Kleist himself wrote that Pentheilea and Katie were the positive and the negative of femininity. That, I think, is a bit much. Trial by Fire isn't as strong a play as Penthesilea, but it is good fun - it's all romantic magical fairy story with hermenutical cruxes and people having illegitimate children and, quite possibly, a man in drag or a hemaphrodite, although the textual evidence is mute about the actual problem. There's a dream which leads people to their true love, and manipulation, and plotting, and broken engagements, and kidnaps, and Emperors having it off with cottagers' wives, and lots of repressed sexuality, and a secret underground court... yes, it all gets a bit silly. But, again, it would be a fabulous text to do a read-through of, and someone remind me I said this when I'm trying to work out housewarming materials ;) And, again, everyone should read Kleist.
Bettine von Arnim - The Life of High Countess Gritta von Ratsinourhouse
Gritta was the final text for the German seminar, the only one we actually got around to reading written by a woman, composed in the early 1840s and never actually published, and very interesting it was too. It's technically a fairy tale, and it's quite easy to just read through it as candyfloss without paying too much attention. But at the same time, there is a lot of very socially subversive commentary (an exceptionally overt criticism of the monarchy, for example, as well as a whole range of critique of women's roles in life) and some quite interesting uses, of all things, of Plato's allegory of the Cave, which I very much enjoyed reading and need to spend a little more time with. The tale essentially follows the Robinson Crusoe finding a new land and creating an ideal community pattern, albeit without the rabid colonialism, with a community of girls led by High Countess Gritta von Ratsinourhouse eventually founding their own little convent in the middle of the woods - except for poor old Gritta, who has to go off and marry a dim prince. A very dim prince.
I am keeping this on the bookshelf to read to any small people who come my way. It's absolutely beautiful.