My good friend Eric Ross (author of the classic The Malthus Factor; check out his awesome essay in my book Anthropology at the Dawn of the Cold War) wrote a lengthy analysis of the Janice Harper affair in the Porcupine, his online political analysis magazine, focusing on the University’s shoddy record with female professors and the age-old fix public intellectuals find themselves in again and again.
Why Janice Harper? Largely, I think, because she is a woman who happened to believe in real gender equality in an especially backward university setting. But, Lesley Sharp also implicitly predicted what would happen when she wrote, in her review, that “Harper pulls no punches.” The critical research that Janice has done on unpopular subjects is the hallmark of her intellectual integrity, of what we need most from academics.
Read the whole thing at The Porcupine – and while you’re there, check out the rest of the material on offer from Eric and his stable of radical-leaning writers.
bq. Why Janice Harper? Largely, I think, because she is a woman who happened to believe in real gender equality in an especially backward university setting.
I am more than a little surprised that a professional anthropologist would find nothing problematic about using phrases like “especially backward” when referring to goings-on in Southern Appalachia.