daveaddison.bsky.social
Historian of Late Antiquity. British Academy Postdoc at University of Liverpool. Hispanophile, Leodensian.
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/people/david-addison
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From Julia Smith's new piece on J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (among other things) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...:
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Agreed, though it's certainly much less discussed.
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I take your point, re: Classics. But I think that the tough thing in very middle class, professional spaces is how to have disciplinary solidarity without it degenerating into mere chumminess. There's a vice of excessive mutual protection, too (see: the entire journalism profession).
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Yes! I first formed this view when thinking about the UK Labour Party ...
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But I think there is a quite distinct subjectivity to people from very elite backgrounds who end up in low paid academic jobs, but have all sorts of contacts outside the academics. And it's different to those who owe a lot to academia, in personal terms. The former are more "burn it down".
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I have a pet theory that one of the big divides on the left in academia is between those who are upwardly mobile and those who are downwardly mobile. Not quite sure how to flesh it out.
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Yeah, it's an interesting question, but I'm afraid I can't help you with that! Maybe Claudia Rapp's book on "brother-making" touches on similar issues?
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The Visigothic Rules tell monastics they can't sleep in the same bed. (They're mainly concerned with sexuality, as far as I can tell, but you could conjecture other motives, too - e.g. the disruptive impact of close friendship on monastic equality).
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And you wonder how many of the Oxbridge jobs will go to established scholars escaping from danger in their own departments ...
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Haha, well, I could be tempted. Happy to chat by dm.
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It will happen!
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Writing is tempting but I have a monograph to finish ...
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Ah, I must have missed your thread. I saw this a while ago, which is great, though again not medieval-focussed: newleftreview.org/issues/ii133...
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Yes, my instinct too. I'll let you know if I come across any data.
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It does often seem as though the public discourse, at least from a lot of politicians and journalists, is aimed at diverting upwardly mobile, ambitious kids from Humanities and into professional training. I'm sure some otherwise well meanign parents and teachers get caught in this, too.
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In the UK debate, at least, one always get the sense that those pushing "useful" degrees also don't push them on their own kids... I would be interested to know more about who, in practice, is effectively pushing e.g. Business degrees, and who is being most influenced by that messaging.
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I get the sense, though, that most high-earning jobs (if that's the metric that matters) don't require, or even prefer, Business UG degrees over others, though I may be wrong (or out of date). MBAs are a different matter.
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Yes, it is a fascinating disconnect. Business courses are growing a lot here, too. This looks useful: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications...
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It's shifting, I think, but much less quickly than the US. American visiting students I taught in Oxford often noted the difference.
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Anecdotally, I hear this from ECRs in e.g. Pure Mathematics. I think it's hit research funding hard for more 'abstract' sciences. But I do think there is a cultural difference with the US, wherein the most cliche 'elite' thing is still to send your kids to Oxbridge to do traditionally academic subs.
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Of course the Humanities that are being cut used to cross-subsidise these expensive subjects (especially those that attracted international student fees).
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I think it's basically an issue of internal university finances. It's often a loss-making exercise to teach UK students in the current regulatory climate, and Chemistry is an expensive lab-based subject, and harder to scale up than a lecture-based humanities course without adding extra resource.
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It's a good question, and I am not sure I am the person to answer it. I don't detect a general disregard for subjects like Chemistry or Life Sciences in wider culture, though my ear is not really to the ground.
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I do worry, too, about the messaging - i.e. that we end up inadvertently feeding into views of education that take the grammar school, or the private school, as the norm for comps to aspire to. I know that this isn't what you, or most others, are arguing, but we do have to be slightly careful.
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I have no problem with both, I just suspect it's an argument we won't win, politically speaking. Personally I would prioritize arguing for ancient language provision at university level, and putting Latin, Greek, Arabic, Coptic etc. on a more even basis. Though, of course, you could do both.
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Haha, exactly!
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I'm sure *some* would have valued it. But enough to justify the time and resource? At the expense of other things? I suppose I just sympathize with Bridget Phillipson on this!
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Yes, this is the argument I find most compelling (not least because it chimes with my own experiences). My life would have been easier if I'd learnt Latin at school, but I do wonder how well it would have served my classmates.
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Yes, I agree with that, of course. I suppose my concern is around whether there is a marginal benefit to Latin over, say, another modern language. In policy terms I am more anxious about the decline of the latter, so I would struggle to justify earmarking money for Latin, as if it is a special case.
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Presumably there's a reason the right-wing, culture war press are all over this ...
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"La historia de los Reyes Visigodos merece ser contada con orgullo y precisión". Well, orgullo and precisión seem to point in two different directions, and the tone of the piece does not give me hope about the latter ...
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Maybe Beatrice Caseau? She works mainly on incense and scent in the Byzantine world, but I wouldn't be surprised if you could find some western stuff somewhere.
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Thanks a lot for this Javi. Could you add me, please?
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Thanks! You too!
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Also, that rarest of things: a late antique monk who doesn't want to talk about sex.
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And if you want to produce well-rounded flexible people, contorting every discipline to focus only on the key issue of the day is not the most efficient route to do this. I wonder how many people in comms in climate think tanks and activist groups have literature degrees?
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The main benefits have always, for the most part, been indirect. If you want people to be able to access education in the humanities then you need new research to teach. If you want people who can write well, argue cases, persuade people, then a humanities education is a good way of getting this.