20.10.14

Intellectual cowardice

Ricomincio con grande ritardo e poca convinzione. I miei post saranno, d'ora in poi, più degli appunti, visto che comunque la stampa estera la devo sfogliare e che comunque - nonostante il panarama generale sia piuttosto piatto - qualcosa di curioso salta sempre fuori. Come quest'articolo sulla vigliaccheria degli accademici.
 
"Timidity may be especially characteristic of the scholar. As Peter Elbow notes in his essay “Being a writer vs. being an academic: a conflict in goals”, the writer comes to the reader exclaiming, “Listen to me, I have something to tell you!”, while the academic asks meekly, “Is this okay?”. The bespectacled professor citing great thinkers, hedging with “perhapses” and “I would suggests”, and lining the bottom of the page with footnotes to pad against a hard fall: he makes a fine figure of a coward". Chris Walsh (acting director of the College of Arts and Sciences’ writing programme at Boston University), timeshighereducation.

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