My Stuff

https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0

Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





Total Pageviews

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

BRAVE NEW WORLD


In 1961 – 62, when I was teaching at the University of Chicago, I got to know a political scientist named Grant McConnell who had spent a year teaching at Makerere College in Kampala, Uganda. Makerere was an external College of the University of London, one of a network of colonial academic institutions that spanned the globe. Grant said if I were interested he could arrange for me to spend 1962 – 63 in Uganda. I was about to get married that summer and thought that might not be the best way to launch a marriage but I was intrigued so I asked Grant what I would be teaching. He answered “political theory.” “What books what I assign?” “Oh,” he replied, “you know, Locke’s Second Treatise, Rousseau’s Social Contract, the usual stuff.” It seemed to me a trifle bizarre to teach these chestnuts of the European political tradition to a group of African students but he explained that because Makerere was an external College of the University of London, the curriculum had to be the same as in London. Indeed, he went on to tell me, the curriculum was the same at every external College of the University of London in the entire British Empire. What was more, the examination set at the end of the semester was the same no matter where you took the course, in London, or in Uganda, or in New Delhi, or anywhere else. The most delicious fact he communicated to me was that in order to avoid cheating, the University of London required that the examination be given at exactly the same time no matter where in the world the students might happen to be. Since, as we all know, in those days the sun never set on the British Empire, this meant that some students would be taking the exam at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, some at 10 PM, some at four in the morning, and some, no doubt, at midnight.

I thought about this as I have read stories about the arrangements universities in the United States are making for distance learning by their overseas students, some of whom might not be able to attend classes in person and might not even be able to travel to the United States.

The academic year 2020 – 2021 is going to be a shambles.

2 comments:

LFC said...

The name Grant McConnell rang a bell w me but I cdn't quite remember the full title of the book for which he is, I believe, best known.

Google helped out; the book is:
Private Power and American Democracy

LFC said...

P.s. The date of Uganda's independence: Oct. 9, 1962.

So McConnell was teaching in a colony but in 1962-63 you wd have been teaching in an independent country, albeit one that presumably took a while to establish somewhat more independent (from Univ of London) educational institutions. No doubt the British heritage/example in this respect remained, and remains, influential. (Makerere, I believe, has had a long reputation as one of the best universities in Africa. Btw I had a prof in grad school who had taught there, if memory serves, or maybe been a visiting student there. Can't recall exactly but I know he'd been there in some capacity...)