Public Scholarship

"What if campus-based artists and humanists—connoisseurs of metaphor—took ourselves more literally? What if we took the question of democratizing the canon literally enough to enter in the joint discovery of literary knowledge with non-academics? What if we took the passion for public spaces literally enough to collaborate with municipal partners on site design? What if we took our interest in gender and genre literally enough to work with high-school girls active in the poetry slam movement?"

-Ellison

I realize that I will be offending most if not all the class when I say this, but I feel like Ellison touches on a crucial point-- knowledge and insight written by academics for academics is not necessarily the most desirable form of scholarship. I feel like many of the readings we've had so far have been just that-- theoretical, slightly esoteric, difficult to metabolize, and quite frankly not very useful outside of an academic context--because as a citizen, I'm not sure I would a) be able to understand the tactics presented, or b) be able to apply them. Exceptions include Bal, Barthes, and a few others. As Domke so rightly pointed out, the role of an academic is to study relevant social, historical, literary political, economic, biological, [etc.] phenomena to serve the public good. I am more impressed by the scholars who can take complex concepts and theories, express and explain them in the societal vernacular, and educate and mobilize the general public than I am by academics who write long, esoteric treatises dealing with a highly specific and complex theory and never make their insight available to the general public. I am not eschewing the research of those passionate about researching a single poem or a single space, but I believe there are ways in which a scholar can make their experience and thought process relevant to today's world--after all, every event, text, and process has implications for society.

"Public scholarship and hope go hand in hand. When scholars highlight opportunities for social change, we offer hope. When scholars help people to negotiate systems in ways that more fully honor their humanity, we offer hope. When scholars provide tools that allow people to take greater control over personal and cultural choices, we offer hope. And when scholars drop our detachment and adopt an ethic of engagement, we offer hope. It is this emphasis—on the belief that together we can build a better world, a more perfect union of humanity—that drives me toward public scholarship."

-Domke

Domke is brilliant-- this is what frustrates me most about the academic world. What is the use of studying a phenomenon if the research is not intended to somehow improve the world? I feel like we've gotten trapped in a cycle of Marx-like "knowledge-fetishism," where instead of doggedly focusing on commodities as the object of desire we have focused on knowledge-- or perhaps the production of knowledge-- for the sake of knowledge. I have been presenting my own research at the Honors Research Colloquium, URP symposium, a conference, and several other venues these past few weeks, and I have been frustrated by the lack of "big-picture" thinking. Yes, I would agree that it's interesting to know that the color of a flower's stemen impacts its chance of being pollinated, but what implications does this have for agriculture? Even for our gardens-- can we change the color of the stemen and grow more flowers, meaning we don't need to use toxic fertilizers? Yes, it's interesting that a hit to the olfactory lobe affects cognitive processes, but does this change what we know about brain damage? It seems that many of the presenters to which I directed these questions hadn't considered the larger community, and I think that's a flaw in the academic system-- after all, what good is unapplied knowledge? Domke points out that research should be done collaboratively with the public in order to improve the world.

In terms of our project, I think that Ruben and I were very careful to choose a subject that has ripples throughout the world and we consistently focus on those implications for society. However, as to how best communicate something so senstitive to the public...Well, that's difficult. We have publicly accessible blogs, we could create something to post on youtube, we could write an article for a press source, I'm not sure how we would be able to impart the importance of this research to the larger community without offending someone.