Passion, Dispassion, and the Scholar

Catalog description

What role should passion and the imagination play in intellectual endeavor? Is the dispassionate, objective, and objectifying voice the only appropriate one in the arena of scholarship? How much can or should the scholar let his or her personality and personal investment in a subject appear on the page? The seminar will explore these and related questions by examining non-traditional modes of scholarly writing (primarily but not exclusively drawing on historians and anthropologists). This is not a seminar about theory and method, although such issues will inevitably be part of our discussions. It is a seminar about writing and scholarly voice. P