Last night, I got up at midnight, as I often do, and could
not go back to sleep, so after tossing and turning for a bit, I thought to do a
version of counting sheep: I counted the colleges and universities at which I
have taught at least one course. I got
up to seventeen, checked once to make sure I had not forgotten one, and then
turned over and went back to sleep. Here
is the list, in chronological order:
Harvard, the University of Chicago, Wellesley, BU,
Northeastern, Columbia, Barnard, CCNY, City University, Hunter College,
Rutgers, UMass, Yale, Brandeis, the New School, Williams, and UNC Chapel Hill.
This morning, it occurred to me to wonder how many disciplinary
departments or interdisciplinary programs I had taught in. I counted ten, also in chronological order: Philosophy, History, General Education (at
Harvard,) Social Studies, General Education (at Chicago,) Political Science, Social
Thought and Political Economy, Afro-American Studies, Economics [Into Micro. believe
it or not], Sociology.
I have spent my life going from city state to city state
teaching the children of the rich for money.
In short, I am a professional wise man, what the Greeks called a
Sophist.
7 comments:
Like my daddy used to say, "It takes all kinds to make the world go round."
I for one have been grateful to find this blog and hear your sophistry.
Good clear eyed summary: going from city state to city state teaching the children of the rich for money. So how could it be different? Wasn't it Kant who taught independently for awhile?
Also did you leave out a coma or was the "Social Thought and Political Economy" (which I remember well and it was a sensation of sorts) - intended to be attached to "Afro -American Studies."
Question: did you ever meet James Baldwin?
"Children of the rich" makes the last paragraph clever, but probably "mainly children of the middle and upper middle class, with some working class and a fairly large number of rich kids in the mix" would be more accurate. Or so I would guess.
CCNY is for children of the rich?
Well, when I try to explain to my students what it was the the sophists actually taught I say that it was a mixture of PPE, management (especially estate management) theory and rhetoric which in those days subsumed the now seperate subjects of 'communications', advertising, political marketing and public relations. Plus some it was a bit like modern day 'motivational speaking' (right down the money-back guarantee). Of course for us nowadays it is the PPE component (in so far as it survives) that is really interesting but the other parts were probably more useful to the sophists' clients.
Unlike Professor Wolff I am not a sophist since although I teach PPE, I am insufficiently peripatetic having only taught at Otago for thirty-two years. Gosh, what a relief!
Speak the truth thus angering the Trump administration. They convict you for speaking against God (i.e., Trump), and they force you to take chloroquine. You die not as a Sophist, but as a tragic Socrates wannabe.
Who's your favorite sophist? I'd guess that it's Protagoras, the Kantian among the pre-Socratics, no? I've often been struck by the audacity of Gorgias: nothing exists, if it did, one couldn't know it, and it one could know it, one couldn't communicate one's knowledge. That last part makes teaching a bit of a sketchy proposal.
Post a Comment