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From the Monk's Cell to the Professor's Office

  • Kisha G. Tracy (author)
Chapter of: The Ballad of the Lone Medievalist(pp. 145–159)

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Metadata
TitleFrom the Monk's Cell to the Professor's Office
ContributorKisha G. Tracy (author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0205.1.13
Landing pagehttps://punctumbooks.com/titles/the-ballad-of-the-lone-medievalist/
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
CopyrightTracy, Kisha G.
Publisherpunctum books
Published on2018-08-23
Long abstractDespite the title of this essay, I am not going to spend much time in the monk’s cell — this regardless of the common hab-it of equating academics with monks, generally with negative connotations. This image was evoked by Nicholas Kristof in his much-discussed (by academics at least) New York Times article, “Professors, We Need You!,” advocating for public engagement by academics in less arcane language. He ends with the cry, “So, professors, don’t cloister yourselves like medieval monks — we need you!”1 Earlier, he defines what this “cloistering” means: “A basic challenge is that Ph.D. programs have fostered a culture that glorifies arcane unintelligibility while disdaining impact and audience. This culture of exclusivity is then transmitted to the next generation through the publish-or-perish tenure pro-cess. Rebels are too often crushed or driven away.” Essentially, he is denigrating, if not the lone medievalist by name, then certainly the lone academic. With due respect to Mr. Kristof, he clearly has not been a student of medieval studies. Peter Buchanan offers a reply to Kristof ’s article on his blog Phenomenal Anglo-Saxons that cannot fail to make a medievalist smile — if not smirk. He writes, “And since my PhD is in medieval studies, it’s not clear that he would want me [...] although I could at the very least let him know that medieval monks were often active figures in their world, preserving and transmitting knowledge, producing art and literature, and serving as public intellectuals shaping the course of local and international political affairs.”2Of course, such a discussion would necessarily get into eremitic vs. cenobitic monastic traditions, the various rules of orders, and the determination of the effects monks had on public life. Nonetheless, Buchanan’s response is well-aimed.
Page rangepp. 145–159
Print length15 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Kisha G. Tracy

(author)