On Academic Arrogance (again)

It is such an awesome thing that nowadays, academics are using in an increase number social media. In just a couple of words, they can share their latest researches, connect with researchers and aspiring academics interested in their line of work and eventually start substantial collaborations in real life.

But clearly, social media in the academic field has, as in the case of many other circumstances, a two-edge: if used wisely it can be a very useful tool advancing knowledge - regardless the domain, but it can also be a self-reproducing tool of stereotypes, intolerance and non-sense.

A couple of hours ago, someone tweeted on a topic I am not academically qualified - although it pertains to my area of study, which is about ethnic minorities and intellectual representations in Central and Eastern Europe, but that happens to know as a fact of life. It was about the Yiddish culture and language. The respective tweet was complaining that as the number of Yiddish native speakers is diminishing, the language itself is entering a threatening stage. The quoted article was referring though to a very intellectual version of Yiddish, promoted by YIVO, which mostly relies to the intellectual works done in this language, like the works of Shalom Aleihem or other known Yiddishists.

However, I have a good news and a bad news. Although the literary, intellectual production in the Yiddish language decreases, the language is not dying at all. Rather the opposite. There are thousands of children born in the US, Europe - Belgium and France mostly - and Israel whose first language it Yiddish. Part of very strict religious groups - like for instance the Satmer - they are using the language in a very active way, in their specific variants - Hungarian, Lithuanian etc.. They do not write literature - yet, but think about those children who once growing up will probably decide to not be religious anymore but they keep the language and might want to write first in their mother tongue. 

I bet - and I hope I am wrong - the academics involved in the discussion about the dying status of Yiddish are not familiar -in a direct, non-academic way - to those realities, never actually spoke with someone belonging to this group and if there are not some academic references about the topic, they will never actually figure out such people really exist.

I am often faced with such discrepancies between the realities of the academic worlds and life. The arrogance and self-referential attitude which ignores anything coming from 'non-expert' - probably a bunch of 5 people spending their time reading everything on the topic but with a very narrow interest in checking the facts - as such an approach is depreciativelly qualified as 'journalistic' creates the premises of false projections. When you are talking about a language in danger, the measures that might come to mind, if not connected to a reality on the ground, will not help in any respect.

Personally, I will not cease to balance the intensive academic research and reading with direct contact with the 'subjects' I am about to study. For the preparation of my PhD I've spent an impressive amount of time talking with people, learning and speaking their languages, understanding their education system and their mindset, instead of relying exclusively on academic approaches. It helped me to understand the conundrum of the mentality, the eventual evolutions as well as the patterns. Such an attitude keeps me busy enough to avoid both in real life and through social media self-sufficient academics. 

The Need for Localisation

One of the most challenging part of writing and researching diversity - especially national and ethnic - is the need to be specific. The more vague, general and, theoretically, inclusive you are, the biggest the danger to be accused of misunderstanding and misleading the adequate definition of the topic you approach. 

My thoughts were pushed by a recent - with some academic notes - discussion I had on food. There could be specific criteria to declare a food tasty - education and cultural background being one of them - but when it comes to placing a food geographically, you can easily start a war. I am slowly slowly gathering more and more such testimonies - hopefully part of a book I hope to finish one day - one of the most famous - also because it has to do with an area which always burns - is the hummus war between Lebanon and Israel. As a final user, I might say that I love the hummus made by both Lebanese and Israeli cooks - although personally not a hummus lover because the food I grew up with was slightly different in taste and ingredients (call it bland, sometimes), but what exactly made a hummus to be made in Lebanon, respectively made in Israel is a matter of political choice, sometimes. 

Closer to home, the famous food appropriations of foods among the Balkan countries are less burning - right now - but in a small Serbian village might bring a lot of tensions if you label a food wrongly, as Croatian or Turkish. 

What you can really do in order to avoid such unpleasant political background to your plate - food to be enjoyed in a special ambiance and this is hopefully no big dispute about it - is to get into as many details as possible when describing a food. The details have to do with the special place where the meal was eaten and the very special details of the recipe. Some ingredients and ways to prepare might differ from a village to another and could be slightly altered from a family to another. Offering as many personal and individual details add a lot of zest to the recipe and the food story in general, as it opens up the ways to tell individual, subjective stories. 

The food love might lead to anthropological memories and could help recreate a world where table manners and customes as well as menus are part of individual narratives and histories. On the long term it can also create more enjoyable discussion about food besides setting up the world of fire for...a tasty bowl of hummus.

For a Better Academic Year

With only a few post published on a blog and only a limited academic activity, 2017 was not my best in terms of academic achievements and professional advancement. For reasons completely independent of my will, of very personal reasons - but luckily, not mine - most of my academic readings had to do with issues dealing with mental health and mental instability of persons that did not benefit the proper medical support when they needed to, developing into toxic unstable adults. An interesting investigation after all, but not my area of study and not something I am very keen to further explore.

However, once I settled down - at least on my side - my own version of the story, it is about time to set up my visual board and aim high for a reboost of my academic career. I am fully aware that things will not jump out of nowhere from 0 to 100, but at least, settling down in an academic mood, sounds like what I have to expect for my next 12 months. And work hard towards achieving it. 

In this new arrangement, the blog - and the Twitter account which is slowly slowly growing up (like 1 follower the year...maybe) is playing a very clear role, as a dairy which will help me keep the track of my records, but also encourage me to move forward with my efforts towards a better academic visibility and planning. The plan is to post at least twice the week, with a clear focus on books and various academic challenges specific to people with the highest academic training - as I do, with a PhD in history, a book written and couple of academic articles - but without the clear thought of actually being part of the academic establishment - at least for now. Maybe it is about time to make a change in this respect and hopefully 2018 will be the year when I will sort out my serious plans and maybe some teaching perspectives too. 

Here it is for now! Hopefully, things will get much better and I will be able to keep up with a modest schedule and academic planning!

Wish all my academic readers a happy healthy and successful 2018!

Back in the academic blogging business

Almost two years without a blog post, and not too many academic achievements...True is that there were a lot of challenging taking place and the academic perspectives and experiences helped in finding solutions. Although academic writing and the improvement of the academic CV was relatively slowing down, or put on hold for a couple of months, it was just a provisory situation.

Right now, fulll of energy and ideas for at least one book until the end of the year, I am back and ready to use the blog as a tool for sharing ideas about books, academic life and academic travels and history. I am preparing a couple of reviews of interesting academic books that caught my attention recently and the blog will be updated at least once the week. 

With plans to upgrade my academic CV and some long time projects for the medium term. 

All being said for now, I am back preparing my next post!

Keep in touch with good academic news! Soon, very soon!

Being an academic while working

Here we are again! No, I didn't mean at the beginning of the year, as I usually don't count my life from a January to another. It means that the beginning of the new working season brings a lot of challenges for my already fragile academic life. 

Since I left high-school and started the university, I cope over and over again with the same problem: the balance between my long hours of work and the need to catch up with my academic interests. Even though I followed the à la carte academic menu, I didn't give up my freedom for a full time career in the academia, as what interests me the most now and in the future is to write, not to teach. I may consider this option soon as well, but for the moment, the need to do proper research and finish a couple of very interesting projects started a couple of months and even years ago is my main priority.

My morning enthusiasm to have everything done in due time was significantly diminished when shortly after I finish my first coffee I realized that I also need to do some non-academic chores, for being able to pay my freedom of writing and doing research. 

As I didn't reach yet the impressive level of being able to self-sustain my daily needs only from my books and academic achievements, I still need to keep some projects that eat a lot of time and without a drop of high-thinking in them, but serious enough and financially important to secure 4-5 days the month when I don't need to do anything else but focus on my writing, or allowing me to buy online the books that I cannot read at the library.

It is a schizophrenic reality but not so dramatically demanding for not giving me the hope that I should continue one more year, or maybe two. Today, for instance, I continue the research for my next book, while I stop every 30 minutes to check if new freelance gigs are available on my online platforms. This will continue tomorrow too. But there is always a price for a free life and I am ready to wait a little bit longer till, finally, I can enjoy the luxury of being nothing else but an academic. Meanwhile, I know that it's all for the good and trying to get the best of my experiences.

Happy academic life everyone!