She’s your friend, so I am a jerk for writing this, but her post was awful. Maybe not “you’re fired” awful, but definitely in that neighborhood.

In your Weekly Standard piece, you refer to what Ms. Riley did as “disect[ing]” these dissertations. I am perfectly prepared to believe this dissertations are junk, but a dissection is precisely what she failed to perform. Rather, Riley pointed at the titles and said “get a load of that!” This is lazy analysis, and when applied to specialized academic work, inappropriate to the level of incompetence. Could a historical analysis of black midwifery be of legitimate academic interest? I dare say it could be.

I am a critic of trendy academic nonsense, and critics of trendy academic nonsense need to do better than this.

“You’d never see chemists or physicists or mathematicians worked into a hysterical mob by a critical blog post. Because they study actual fields of knowledge—and don’t simply tend the garden of their own feelings.”
Actual fields of knowledge? I had to read that line twice to make sure I didn’t misread the malevolence contained therein. I will not call you a racist, I will not remind you to pick up your extra-starched white robes at the dry cleaner, I will not scream for you to be fired. No, I will just conclude that you are ignorant (lack of knowledge) to what Black/African Diaspora/African-American Studies really is. Without running too long I will say with unwavering confidence that “Black Studies” is more than just A field of knowledge. Black Studies programs are the gateway to endless FIELDS of knowledge covering most genres of wisdom. . . as well as offering a limitless number of world-view lenses to accomplish these intellectual endeavors. The subjects that Ms. Riley belittled are very important to researchers from psychology to sociology to healthcare to any number of social sciences. You don’t deserve to be fired but a mild pimp slap would probably do you well. God bless.

ben_a,

Rod Dreher published an email from Alan Jacobs (someone who I tend to like) which basically said the same thing you are saying. Unfortunately, I couldn’t disagree more. Sometimes, even academic subject matter is an appropriate topic of ridicule. Here is Riley in context:

“If ever there were a case for eliminating the discipline [Black Studies], the sidebar explaining some of the dissertations being offered by the best and the brightest of black-studies graduate students has made it. What a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap. The best that can be said of these topics is that they’re so irrelevant no one will ever look at them.

That’s what I would say about Ruth Hayes’ dissertation, “‘So I Could Be Easeful’: Black Women’s Authoritative Knowledge on Childbirth.” It began because she “noticed that nonwhite women’s experiences were largely absent from natural-birth literature, which led me to look into historical black midwifery.” How could we overlook the nonwhite experience in “natural birth literature,” whatever the heck that is?”

Look at what Riley is criticizing — both the subject of “natural birth literature” and presumably the idea that black women can have “authoritative knowledge” of the subject. Should scholars be studying these matters? Let me help you and everyone in history departments, women’s studies departments, and black studies departments all across the country answer that question: no.

Ben_A,

You are starting to wear me down, partly because you make a good argument, and partly because flattery will get you everywhere. A couple of points:

1) I still think the use of “authoritative” in the title of that dissertation merits a dismissive tone;

2) you and I just aren’t going to agree on midwifery — I could see some sort of broader discussion of the subject as part of a in-depth look at the history of domestic habits of Westerners but I’m of the opinion that too much of the Humanities is wasted on irrelevant subjects and nonsense — I want a return to Great Books and Great Men (and the occasional woman) model of literature and history — so I’m on board with Riley’s bigger project of trying to mock all of these self-important scholars;

3) even if I grant all your relatively good points regarding the midwife example, the “Black Republican” example is just risible; Ms. Riley could have read that dissertation ten times and it wouldn’t have changed anything — you, me, and everyone with half a brain can ridicule a paper that describes John McWhorter as a “conservative” (this is a guy who publicly defends President Obama) and also describes these black Republicans as playing “one of the most-significant roles in the assault on the civil-rights legacy that benefited them.” No reading necessary.

Fake Herzog,

I suspect we are approaching a common ground. I too favor a great books emphasis, but this seems to me a more obvious focus for undergraduate liberal education vs. graduate study. If we are to have a standing army of professional researchers in the humanities, however, there just will be a certain amount of research on niche topics. — midwifery, Canadian novelists, the economic influence of changes in shipbuilding techniques, etc. A scholar who conducts that research scrupulously mostly gets a pass from me.

The black republican one looks pretty self-evidently dreadful, I agree…

Oh, you’re so wrong in your article “Mob on the Quad.”

“You’d never see chemists or physicists or mathematicians worked into a hysterical mob by a critical blog post.”

OK. Criticize AGW or Sustainability or the economical inefficiencies of Hybrid Vehicles. Argue that air, water and soil quality is getting better in free societies and worse in socialist countries.

You’ll see some hysterical scientists.