°A flock of affability
T-shirts are now available. [*]
[Update] Jebni adds, and it’s worth repeating, since it suggests that in many ways the issue is not so much that the academy is an industry, but that the people in it continue to pretend that it’s not. In that sense, they end up being driven by the affective economy of the academy (some of which Jon talked about earlier) rather than being able to detach from it long enough to question where it’s taking them, how it makes them relate to others, and why.
I might also add here that I’m endlessly amused by the absence of any discussion of subjectivation in a discipline which so readily slings this word around. Not surprised at the paradox, since disciplinarity is as disciplinarity does. But, still, amused.
Anyway, here are Jebni’s remarks:
As some of you know, I’ve spent numerous years in the disturbing world of advertising. But in my time amongst the Evil Empires, I have never seen as many people in one room so visibly “on the make” as I did at the Cultural Research Network’s PreFix postgraduate and early career researcher professional development day. It was shocking. Part of me puts this down to a delayed reaction to the marketisation of the university, coupled with the rhetoricising functions of the academy, which results in the bizarre spectacle of people suggesting that one “cultivate an affable persona” in order to get ahead in academia. But I don’t think such factors quite account for that aroma of desperate careerism.
The other thing that comes to mind is that the emerging sense that ‘there is no other way to do things’ than to buckle down and play the game is, I think, part of the game in itself. Indeed, assertions that no other way of doing things is possible marks out those for whom the game was, when all is said and done, the point after all - while presenting the fiction that, if they really could, they would do things otherwise. Which I honestly doubt.
Well, dark times provokes harsh criticism I guess.
Not having been at the PreFix event, I’m not sure what else I can add. I probably already have a poor reputation professionally and personally - should I be concerned?
Michael Dieter [December 5, 2005 @ 9:04 pm]
Reputations can be deemed deemed ‘poor’ for many reasons. If all you do is grin like an idiot, well, this might come over rather poorly …
But, honestly, the university trades on the semblance of innovation and - at least the mirage of - thought. It also depends on truckloads of affectively committed labour. The idea that being affable will get anyone you take seriously to take you seriously, or that this might secure employment in an environment you can stand to work in, suggests a lack of political and economic nous.
s0metim3s [December 5, 2005 @ 10:31 pm]
1. where do the profits from your t-shirts go?
2. i went to the first half of prefix. i think many people simply need some employment that even offers a semblance of what they studied, and that offers a chance to act politically in some ways while working. to continue to learn skills i could use to act more ethically and care for others.
many people are doing it tough financially, i know i am. it is a compromise i guess, maybe not a good one as you suggest.
but i find that if i can’t pay the rent and afford meals it’s very difficult be as “political” and confrontational all the time as you seem to suggest.
after washing dishes for many hours i also find it difficult to pick up some “heavy” theoretical text . dishpigging isn’t the best field for that sort of discussion either.
so what to do.
alternatives?
c [December 6, 2005 @ 8:11 am]
Are there profits? You’ll have to ask Jebni.
I don’t think I understand the assumption that there’s a bond between waged labour and politics, or even the university and politics. It seems to define politics in a very particular way, and then, on the basis of this definition, assert that the university is the principal or only locus for such. In any case, I have yet to see any strong correlation between being in the university and intelligence, or being in the university and being politically active. The material basis for the latter was conditional upon time, and the increasing absence of time has shifted things dramatically.
Having the time to read, write, be political (however this is defined) isn’t answered by the academy. Not given the experiences of most people I know who work there, since they barely have time to read, much like any dishpig. The issue is time, not what waged labour one might do.
And who suggested being confrontational and political all the time? But exhausting oneself in sucking up in the dim hope that this might land one a job doesn’t actually seem to be all that strategic about how to spend one’s time.
s0metim3s [December 6, 2005 @ 9:15 am]
trying to compete harder than everyone else for a smaller number of jobs is what you studied, c?
jen [December 6, 2005 @ 10:00 am]
“i think many people simply need some employment that even offers a semblance of what they studied, and that offers a chance to act politically in some ways while working. to continue to learn skills i could use to act more ethically and care for others.”
What I got from Prefix, from the actual sessions and from the private conversations I had with organisers/speakers afterwards, was that being ethical or political etc is definitely not a part of the job description of academia or humanities work, if it ever was. If teaching or research offers any chance to be political, you have to carve out a space for that yourself.
az [December 6, 2005 @ 10:26 am]
How come this stuff happens in my town and I don’t even hear about it? Sheesh, anthropology must be in the terminal stages.
Perhaps it’s for the better. Is it just me or is cultural studies in the final stages of metamorphosis into…advertising? But as Jebni said, it’s more than advertising. There is no room even for cynicism. Take stuff like fandom studies. The presumption there appears to be that the only proper affective terrain from which one could write about ‘cultural phenomena’ is adulation. That’s pretty amazing, really a pharaonic degree of servility.
Speaking of advertising, the world just keeps on getting reenchanted. The Google Ad on the right reads “Believe in God? We’ll pay you $75 right now to complete a simple survey! PaidSurveysOnline.com”. How amazed Weber would have been to see applied sociology mediating the transformation of faith into money.
TCO [December 6, 2005 @ 3:06 pm]
I think Weber would be exactly the person to have explained it. As well as the calculations of expediency perhaps.
Though, to sharpen the point of previous remarks and all, Benjamin’s phd was failed because it was deemed too obscure and insufficiently disciplinary. But he didn’t stop writing because he didn’t get to be an academic. And there are so many other similar oustings from the academy that, likewise, didn’t halt the production of critical thought, or an engagement in politics - um, Marx, not to mention the millions of lesser-known people whose politics seem never to be credentialed as such - that the panicky bond being asserted between critical analysis/politics and the academy begins to look so post-WWII. But, really folks, the end of Fordism is not the end of the world.
s0metim3s [December 6, 2005 @ 10:43 pm]
excellent stuff to think about. will get back to you soon. i see what you mean re my connecting politics and the academy . it was lazy thinking
thanks for taking the time out to reply. again, appreciated.
jen,
problem is i am not much of a competitor. i tend to feel guilty if i get something and somebody else misses out. childhoood trauma of some sort?! :)
but i do think the academy does still produce some excellent critical/political work, and will continue to do so.
maybe a bit more of an optimist than you maybe sOmetimes lol. (how do you do the funny “e” thingy hahaha)
C [December 8, 2005 @ 12:33 pm]