glutton for punishment

So, because I am a glutton for punishment, and because I can only do so much until my research permit comes through, I am sitting in on a class at the University of Botswana.

I heard about the class from another American student, who mentioned she was taking a class from Professor X. I had the sort of reaction you might have if I mentioned Julia Child was in my kitchen throwing something together for dinner. You can't go anywhere in the history of Botswana without bumping into Professor X's work.

I figure Professor X knows my advisors. The world of southern African scholarship is only so big. But since they haven't mentioned him much, I also surmise that they are not necessarily close. This is also fine. We can all be professional, right?

Well, last night, I took another student shopping. She just got here and doesn't have a car yet, and I'm a nice person. It also gave me a break from writing a little paper for this class I'm taking. The student asked which readings I was writing about. The readings included a piece by my advisors.

A note: This student knows which institution I hail from, but my guess is she's doesn't know her way around my part of the academy enough to put two and two together and realize that institution A + region/set of interests B probably = advisor C.

"Oh, them!" she exclaimed, "I tried to read an article of theirs once, and I got so frustrated with it I couldn't get through it."

Well, I could hardly blame her there. It's not like I've never found their writing difficult to follow. I never had cause to read their work as an undergraduate, and I imagine I would have struggled with it if I had.

She then told me some snarky things one of her professors at her college had to say about my advisors. This is fine, too. Academics disagree, and the bigger your name is, the more reason people have to say snarky things about you.

"... and Professor X thinks they're idiots!" she concluded enthusiastically.

. . .


. . .


. . .

Well. What do you say to that?

At this point, I looked over at her and told her who my advisor was. That sort of shut her up. But, as I explained to her (and myself), Professor X's disagreements with my advisors don't necessarily mean I can't have a good relationship with Professor X. (Maybe that's a bit idealistic, but I like to err on the side of believing people can behave like adults about this kind of thing.)

That said, this did not exactly make it easy to go home and write a paper about my advisors' work for Professor X. Admittedly, I did not hear Professor X say he thought they were idiots. I would bet good money that he did not use those words. I'm pretty sure in which context this student heard Professor X say something that gave the impression that he thought my advisors were idiots, but I do expect Professor X to actually have a little respect even for those with whom he disagrees.

It still didn't make writing the paper any easier.

. . .


. . .


. . .

I presented part of the paper this evening. (I didn't finish it, and with the mounting stress I was not about to stay up all night over it, but between text and outline I had enough to get the ideas across.) Professor X was snarky, but not necessarily any cattier than he is any other reading. He did make a remark about me explaining my advisors' work "because no one understands it," but he listened more or less respectfully to what I had to say. I feel better about it, but I am starting to understand how post-graduate-school life can be a bit hard. One becomes socialized into the hierarchical forms of one's own institution, and then one forgets about their particularity. There was a time when I didn't really feel an overwhelming amount of respect for my advisors, and there was also a time when I understood what kind of respect afforded them but didn't wholly understand why. It's easy to forget that I had to learn this, and it's easy to forget not everyone agrees. This is not the kind of lesson I expected from fieldwork, but my guess it will be awfully useful in the long run.