From: PMC-Talk: Thread: Silber, Strauss, and Post-Democratic Politics in the Academy

(Excerpted from the Discussion Group PMC-talk@ncsuvm, 7/92–8/92)

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PMC-TALK digest: postings for the period ending 11–30–93.

PMC-TALK is the discussion group for the electronic journal_Postmodern Culture_ (PMC-LIST). Subscription to PMC-TALK is independent of subscription to PMC-LIST; if you are not subscribed to the journal itself, and would like to be, send your first and last name and a request for subscription to PMC@UNITY.NCSU.EDU (internet).

Today’s Topics:
     Boston Univ.’s Pres. Silber

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Sender: “Joseph H. Hesse”
Subject: Boston Univ.’s Pres. Silber

Hello. I am new to this list (to e-mail as well) and I feel a responsibility to produce some text for this list, rather than just sit in my room consuming the text of others.

Has anyone else been reading about Pres. Silber’s recent letter to the faculty of Boston University. There was an article today in THE BOSTON GLOBE. They quote his letter as saying:

“Boston University has resisted the imposition of doctrines that would curtail intellectual and academic freedom. It is plain that some versions of critical theory, radical feminism and multiculturism, among other intellectual positions, are ideological in character and inhospitable to free intellectual inquiry.”

“Marxism, structuralism, feminism, etc., do not, in and of themselves, threaten academic freedom, but each of these views is highly susceptible to being formulated as dogma, impervious to any arguments or evidence not already in conformance with the basic tenets of the dogma.”

“Any university that takes academic and intellectual freedom seriously has an obligation to spot these epistemologies and head them off.”

The Globe reports that areas of study that Silber mentioned in an earlier report to the trustees were:

“Critical legal studies, revisionist history, Afro-centrism, radical feminism, multiculturalism, the Frankfurt school of Critical Theory, structuralism and deconstructionism, dance therapy, gay and lesbian liberation and animal liberation.”

I found so much of this article troubling, on so many different points, that I hardly know where to begin with a commentary on Silber’s statements. And so, I will wait and see if anyone is interested in this subject before I clutter up this list with my text.

Any Comments or additional information on Silber?

Joseph Hesse
jhhes.mvax.cc.conncoll.edu

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PMC-TALK digest: postings for the period ending 12–2–93.

[ . . . . ]

Today’s Topics:
     President Silber of Boston University’s reported remarks
     CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS TO NOBODADDIES
     CALL FOR PAPERS: Meeting of Society for Literature and Science

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Sender:
>Subject: Re: President Silber of Boston University’s reported remarks

As someone who works with both deconstruction and structuralism, I am profoundly disturbed by President Silber’s reported remarks. Are we in for another round of McCarthyism in American academe? And in what ways is dance therapy a threat to the powers that be?

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PMC-TALK digest: postings for the period ending 12–4–93.

[ . . . . ]

Today’s Topics:
     Re: President Silber of Boston University’s reported remarks
     Re: Silber

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Sender:
Subject: Re: President Silber of Boston University’s reported remarks
>As someone who works with both deconstruction and structuralism, I am
>profoundly disturbed by President Silber’s reported remarks. Are we in for
>another round of McCarthyism in American academe? And in what ways is dance
>therapy a threat to the powers that be?

Don’t you know that dancing leads to sex?

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From: bssimon@helix.ucsd.edu (Bart Simon)
Subject: Re: Silber
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 93 8:40:58 PST

Forwarded message:
> From Michael.Lynch@brunel.ac.uk Thu Dec 2 11:40:10 1993
> Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1993 19:39:20
> From: Michael.Lynch@brunel.ac.uk (hsstmel)
> To: bssimon@helix.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: Silber file
> Message-Id:
> In-Reply-To:
>
>
>
> I’m writing this in response to Joseph H. Hesse’s message about
> Boston Univ. President John Silber. Hesse quotes from an article
> in the Boston Globe, regarding Silber’s response to a Faculty
> Council inquiry about academic freedom. Hesse states: “I found
> so much of this article troubling, on so many different points,
> that I hardly know where to begin...