>This is a peculair eclipsing, that Mary Daly and Dorothy Smith ( another
>CRONE of an unwanted scholar ) must recognize, that many of us recognize.
>How is it that the lifetime work of a radical modernist, essenetialised
>feminist theology and theorizing is now rendered illegal, un-tenureable,
>un-wanted. The facts are multiple, shifting and can be reconstructed to
>fit any reality. The multiple readings of this event under-score the
>"conceptual relations of ruling" that underscore our textually mediated
>society, the social text is breathing fire.
Absolutely, I love the metaphor here even if I think the focus of
this speech is skewed away from what I understand to be happening in
the Daly case. It was really helpful to hear from Canadian list
members who find the US legal issue of Title IX compliance an utter
obscurity while, I suspect, the legal status of Prof. Daly's
classroom practices is pretty central to the Boston College
administrative response. While we theorize in a sort of postmodern
utopian spirit over what ought to be the boundaries of academic
freedom and pedagogy, I imagine their university general counsel
telling their university president that millions of dollars of
Federal grants for both faculty research and student tuition support
would be put in jeopardy by Ms. Daly's instructional practices. I am
not persuaded by the rhetoric which delivers its own "ad
instititionem" to BC's administration in accusing it of all sorts of
regressive sins. You and I may appreciate the multiplicity of
realities and revel in their ability to enchant us. We may understand
that "the facts are multiple, shifting and can be reconstructed to
fit any reality." But, if I were President Leahy the social
construction I'd be most worried about might well be the one which
would be handed down by a federal judge about the fiscal health and
liabilities of my institution.
I looked over the administrative postings at BC on the web,
particularly their in-house organ, the BC Chronicle. Some may find a
couple of items there instructive (from the school's point of view):
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/v7/my28/daly.html
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/v7/mr4/daly.html
I did try to find alternative voices on the web about this issue, but
didn't immediately find any. Mary Daly's own web site no longer
appears to be available.
>This is an important dialogue, it is profoundly about the politics of
>academic freedom, scholarship, the annihilating capacities of binary
>argumentation, and the huge lacuna of power at the heart of our utterances.
>
>It is way beyond double think,
Yet, isn't "binary argumentation" precisely the discourse one
necessarily uses when resort is made to the legal system to guarantee
or to secure rights? My lawyer friends tell me that those of us who
are psychologists see too many sides to an issue, whereas in court,
judgment is rendered for one side or the other. (Actually there's
some fascinating work that's been done on the narrative construction
of legal decisions which demonstrates that the best sounding story
tends to get the judgment even when the ostensible "facts" don't seem
to support that decision, e.g., see Janet Malcolm's last book, The
Crime of Sheila McGough). Ironically, Mary Daly seems to be the one
in this instance invoking the discourse by initiating her suit
against BC to "unretire" or to overturn the "detenuring" (whichever
vantage is appropriate).
Vincent Hevern
Le Moyne College
==================================================
Vincent W. Hevern, SJ, PhD
Associate Professor & Chair
Psychology Department
Le Moyne College
Syracuse, NY 13214 USA
Email: hevern who-is-at maple.lemoyne.edu
==================================================
http://maple.lemoyne.edu/~hevern/index.html
==================================================
Internet Editor
Society for the Teaching of Psychology
--OTRP Online
http://www.lemoyne.edu/OTRP/
==================================================