In a recent jobtalk for my University’s open Early Modernism position (out of the barest sense of decency I possess, I’ll refrain from naming names) one of the candidates gave a lecture, based on a book she was writing, concerning the possible worlds inherent in poetry and mathematics in the Early Modern period (a misleading term to indicate the late Renaissance). The lecture focused heavily on the poetry, (we are an English department, after all) yet, when asked to elucidate further on the mathematics portion of her argument, or rather, to at least explain how her interest in mathematics had arisen, she offeredwhat amounted to a weary skimming of mathematical topics and then stipulated that this interest grew “out of [her] interest in death.”
Death?
That is, in the reading of church records for another project, specifically those records which show the dates of a person’s life.
Ah.
Apparently, I must have lived my life under the mistaken impression that the length of one’s life and the dates of one’s death were related to simple, useless factoids of addition like “George Washington was 67 years old when he kicked the bucket,” or “Socrates was 70 or 71 when he chugged that hemlock,” or “Abraham Lincoln was roughly 53 when he wrote the Gettysburg address,” but rather, highly technical mathematical forms involving quadratic equations and trapezoids and shit.
What I had expected her to say, of course, was that she had double-majored in math and english, perhaps even considered studying mathematics at the graduate level. But no. It was death. It was doing simple addition and subtraction while standing next to Tombstones.
Yet, following her explanation was not the discernible hush of skepticism in the room which I expected. You see, I had forgotten the primary joy of academics, specifically those in the realm of Cultural Studies, our school’s chosen battlecry: We love to swing our dicks around and run our mouths off about things we really don’t understand. What’s that? You took a stats class back in undergrad? Great, go ahead and wax arrogant on theoretical mathematics. You once audited a course on Native American Drumming? Cool, write up an ethnographic study that maims the scientific underpinnings of sociology. You read the Huffington Post? Fuck yeah, you now understand foreign policy and should write a paper recommending how to deal with the theocratic government of Iran. Oh man! We’re all so with it and part of the conversation!
The mistake I made, however, was in assuming that people who so heavily value credentials– coming from the right program, knowing the right people, wouldn’t so easily succumb to drunken, smug assurance of their own intelligence. Or perhaps, that coming from the right place, knowing the right people, guarantees that no matter what, you must know what you’re talking about. Even when you sound like a dumbass in front of potential employers.
Though I guess they bought it, so good on her.
