Old Email Archive

digest 1997-01-07 #001


11:29 PM 1/6/97 -0800
From: "Society for Literature & Science" 

Daily SLS Email Digest
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 6 Jan 1997 18:49:04 -0800
From: physp@emory.edu
Subject: Re: So how was the SLS conference?
dear all,
i had not wanted to get drawn into this discussion, but since you,
frank, ask me directly, i'll tell you there
is no need to deconstruct prof. treichler's comment into a literary
artifact. simply speaking, she offended my sense
of what SLS is about, and of what a speaker should bring to SLS, and
offended me personally as well.
i regret that prof. treichler found it necessary to take a side-swipe
at any of the academic areas that contribute to SLS
- -- it happened to be mine -- right within the SLS arena. i regret
that
she seemed to feel that SLS supports an "us vs. them"
mentality where a negative comment about physicists is an OK throw-away
line -- the same thing you seem to mean, frank,
when you say "I was disappointed that elsewhere in her presentation
she
assumed a certain political commonality
within a group that hopes for diversity." those two things are what
i
found reprehensible -- you heard me right, frank.
as for the personal issue, which i did not raise then because it was
not appropriate, it is simple. i went to considerable
effort to raise money from emory university for prof. treichler's
honorarium and expenses. she would not have been at SLS
without my effort, and in that sense, i was her host. i am astonished
that as a guest, prof. treichler would make such a
comment to my face; or, having made it and seeing my response, would
not
soften it, in private if not in public. that was
just plain rude, frank, and has nothing to do with any "concern
for
truth."
best regards and a belated happy new year to all.
sid
- -----------------------
Sidney Perkowitz
Physics Department, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322-2430
Voice:(404)727-4321. FAX: (404)727-0873.
> Dear litsci listci,
>
> At 11:04 AM 12/31/96 -0800, Gilbert J. Brown wrote:
>
> >I have been a curious reader of the recent conversation
presumably alluding
> >to a two
> >cultures clas[h] at the last SLS meeting.  I did not attend the
meeting and
> >would be interested to hear what happened.
> >Thanks.
> ________________
>
> I raised the question about Paula Treichler's keynote presentation
at SLS
> Atlanta 1996, and the exchange that followed.  And I did that
because I
> doubt that we could agree about "what happened."  To the
extent that my
> conjecture may be correct, that evening can be seen to have
produced a
> complex and irreducible verbal construction--a literary artifact. 
Is that
> good?  Literature from science studies?  Because literature is
humane and
> responsive?
>
> So here is how it looked to me.  Paula Treichler, who is not from
SLS but
> who has been active over many years in erasing the boundaries
between
> science studies and science policies, spoke from her experience:
how theory,
> as cultural studies, has influenced the outcomes for HIV/AIDS in
positive
> ways during the past 15 years.
>
> Paula, like many veterans of the early years of those battles, has
a feisty
> style and is more concerned with truth than with politeness, or so
it seems
> to me.  This, because--again from my perspective--defining AIDS has
been
> more important recently than defining the cultural uses of
Maxwell's
> equations.  And she was responding directly to an assertion, from
the
> fractious collective called "Alan Sokal," that science
studies could never
> influence a cure for AIDS.  (My hope initially was that Paula would
enter
> into this post-conference exchange.  And maybe Alan Sokal as
well.)
>
> Anyway, at one point I heard Paula refer to a well-attended panel
that she
> helped to organize at her university (Illinois/Urbana-Champaign) to
discuss
> questions raised by the Sokal-based attack on the conjoining of
literary
> theory with physics.  A number of physicists were there to hear
that panel,
> she said, and (approximate quote) "they certainly did not
raise the
> intellectual level of that discussion."
>
> Then at the end of Paula's lecture, Sid Perkowitz, a physicist from
Emory
> and the local host for SLS, rose to object, so it seemed, to such
a
> characterization of physicists.  "This is reprehensible,"
I heard Sid say.
> I took Sid's meaning to be--well, I am not sure what he meant,
maybe that we
> should be careful not to offend each other.  Paula was not
apologetic, and
> even defended Andrew Ross.  The meeting began on a sour note.
>
> That, as I say, is what happened.  (One Tulane professor once rose
in a
> general faculty meeting to move that the word "stated" be
changed in the
> minutes to "alleged" everywhere that the remarks of
another faculty member
> were recorded.)
>
> As a physicist who has known Paula Treichler for several years, I
was not
> surprised by Paula's report of physicists not doing their homework.
 But I
> was disappointed that elsewhere in her presentation she assumed a
certain
> political commonality within a group that hopes for diversity.  Was
that
> your point, Sid?
>
> I will reserve my usual generalizations about the perils of
> interdisciplinarity for a later stage of this discussion, should
it
> continue.  I agree with Nancy Barta-Smith that kindness is a worthy
goal.
> Where is it to be found?  Maxwell's equations can be cruel beyond
bearing,
> as Sister Helen Prejean has noted.
>
> Best wishes for 1997,
>
> Frank Durham
> New Orleans LA USA