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Hello N,
You have apparently chosen to see all defenses of academic value as colonialism and can see nothing else. I do not dismiss any tradition in itself, but I dismiss making all things equal. I am not a lama, they are not PhD. That is not inherently ethnocentric, racist or anything else. So please stop trying to make this about race or colonialism. Period.
Michael Barker suggests just that – everybody but him and his friends suffer from false consciousness and should be ashamed. I am sorry, but that smells of oldschool 1970s radicalism.
Best,
Jesper.
PS. I did not say that a Buddhist monastery was an occult lodge. I was trying to converse.
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of N.W. Azal
Sent: 23. april 2012 15:17
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] academic career
"...the academic study of magic is that – academic."
"Academic" only according to very narrow, culturally-bound Eurocentric denotations which strictly equates academic and academia with the secular positivist Anglo-European West and its approaches, methodologies, worldviews, lifestyles, collective experience and principles.
"...So to answer your earlier question about Nepal, no, I don’t think a Nepalese authority in itself has any legitimacy in an academic setting, just as my PhD has absolutely no value in an occult lodge, for example."
A surprising faux pas which tautologically reinforces the Eurocentric point of reference whilst simultaneously excluding all things outside of that specific orbit. First, Buddhist monasteries in Nepal which engage in the textual and philosophical traditions of Nepalese Mahayana Buddhism are not "occult lodges." Second, learned and intellectual traditions of non-European traditions likewise in their own contexts have scholars and academics -- and I am not talking about the modern Western grafting its contemporary academic mores into such societies; I am talking about traditional institutions. Your approach dismisses them because it believes only its approach is a valid one in any bona fide intellectual endeavour; meaning, whoever does not belong to the Western Anglo-European frat-club is not worthy of being considered a legitimate scholar or their work serious schlarship. This is the rub and, however much it be protested, it is intellectual colonialism. Period.
Michael Barker has not suggested what has been imputed to him by you.
N
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 2:55 PM, Jesper Petersen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hello all,
To answer the question of disciplinarity, to my mind it is exactly the *lack* of disciplinary orientation – that is, a cross-disciplinary focus on a field – which is inspiring. Coming from History of Religion, this has proven useful for the study of religion and so by extension also the study of esotericism. Your use of “merely” and “just” imply some sort of hierarchy, and while I would like to see more contemporary studies (and so participate in the project group of ESSWE which does just that) I respect the historical and Western orientation of the “folks in Holland” because they acknowledge that their approach is one of several.
That said, the academic study of magic is that – academic. There are limits to how you do things, some of which are implicit in the PhD discussion. So to answer your earlier question about Nepal, no, I don’t think a Nepalese authority in itself has any legitimacy in an academic setting, just as my PhD has absolutely no value in an occult lodge, for example. As Jon pointed out, a key word was *certain* approach – and academia is a certain approach with its own rules, positions, and problems. To me a PhD is equivalent to every other degree – a shorthand for particular qualifications in certain contexts gained by some sort of hard work and examination (nothing racist about that). While I think Prof. Segal’s position is a little too uncompromising, I agree with him on the principles involved and would support these over Barker’s pretentious dismissal of the system any day. And while on the topic: dismissing any scholar working from the inside as supporting the capitalist system *is* elitist. So is telling everybody that you’re radical and they are not.
All the best,
Jesper.
Jesper Aagaard Petersen, PhD
Associate Professor, Programme for Teacher Education
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Låven, Dragvoll allé 40
N-7491 Trondheim
Norway
Phone: +47 73598312
Mobile: +47 47398511
Email: [log in to unmask]
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of N.W. Azal
Sent: 23. april 2012 14:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] academic career
the scholarly study of magic might enable a rethinking of academic orthodoxy.
Ditto! To my mind, the contemporary academic study of magic has yet to answer its own central question as to its disciplinary locus and orientation. Is it merely a branch in the study of the geneology or history of ideas? Is it a sub-discipline in the history of science or cultural anthropology, etc? Following this, how is the phenomenology of magic to be understood in-itself as well cross-culturally and intra-culturally? None of these questions have been adequately addressed yet, although this book, in my mind, has gone a very long way in addressing such concerns: http://www.amazon.com/Singing-Plants-Mestizo-Shamanism-Amazon/dp/0826347290. To date, there is no adequate contemporary theory of magic or methodology to explain it globally, and the Western Academic study of Esotericism as represented by the folks in Holland is really just a sub-discipline of history.
That said, what Michael Barker did in 2009 is indicative of the kind of courageous and rock-solid integrity that very rarely steps out of the halls of the highly politicized environment of the contemporary Western Ivory Tower. To accuse him of elitism is quite ironic given what he says, when he states: "...consequently a purist and more sustainable solution requires that radical intellectuals step out of the university world and work to create alternative, people-powered institutions that can seriously challenge the status quo...given my view of the political role that universities fulfill in justifying plutocracy."
N
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 1:21 PM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
"Getting a PhD is hard work and requires that one submits one’s work for criticism, which is not always easy. Being an academic requires that this process is ongoing. It’s all about scholarship, education and the exchange of ideas. Anyone can participate as long as they put in the effort."
Nicholas Campion
The submission of one's work for criticism can be very valuable, even priceless.
As to Barker's stand, I would say "wow!" . I dont expect I would do that but I admire it.
Thanks Prof. Segal for your position on Campbell in relation to Armstrong. I will compare your Campbell book, your myth book for Oxford, your Armstrong review and the works of Campbell and Armstrong with those views in mind. Such a comparison will help in developing a critical understanding of various approaches to scholarship.
In studying magic and perhaps practising it while studying it, one may observe what could be described as subversions of older academic hegemonies of choice of subject and method of study. In that context, the scholarly study of magic might enable a rethinking of academic orthodoxy.
thanks
oluwatoyin vincent adepoju
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 11:32 AM, Nicholas Campion <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi,
The discussion is in danger of wandering off-topic somewhat, but as the debate between academics and non-academics (both of whom may not may not be practitioners) surfaces periodically on the list, can I just answer the criticisms of ivory towered elitism.
Getting a PhD is hard work and requires that one submits one’s work for criticism, which is not always easy. Being an academic requires that this process is ongoing. It’s all about scholarship, education and the exchange of ideas. Anyone can participate as long as they put in the effort.
Having just looked at Michael Barker’s blog it strikes me that his actions and statements are totally elitist in that he regards himself as superior to those ordinary mortals who accept their degrees. He is setting himself apart from and above his fellows.
Almost all the practitioners I know who have decided to explore academic approaches, whether at undergraduate or postgraduate level, have benefited enormously from the experience,
Nick
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of N.W. Azal
Sent: 23 April 2012 11:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] academic career
I'll leave the matter here by quoting my dear friend Michael J. Barker and his rejection of his Ph.D letter of 2009 (see especially the highlight). http://michaeljamesbarker.wordpress.com/thesis-outline/
Dear Thesis Examinations Coordinator
Since January 2005 I have been enrolled as a Doctoral candidate at Griffith University, and in July 2008 I submitted a Thesis manuscript to the University for external examination. During the course of this period of study my political beliefs have substantially evolved, and I now consider myself a radical scholar.
The study I produced, titled “Mediating Social Engineering: Moving Beyond Elite Manipulation of Democracy,” critically examines how elite power-brokers, especially those assuming the guise of impartial progressive philanthropists, work to manipulate civil society to promote and sustain plutocratic political arrangements. In the final stages of this research, I examined how elite manipulation operates within academia – which led to my presenting a peer-review paper titled, “Progressive Social Change in the ‘Ivory Tower’? A Critical Reflection on the Evolution of Activist Orientated Research in US Universities,” at the Australasian Political Science Association conference that was held last year at the University of Queensland (July 6-9, 2008). This paper demonstrated how powerful liberal individuals and their philanthropic foundations have manipulated the university system to help bolster a capitalist political status quo. I concluded that:
Sustaining useful autonomous activist research within universities requires that radical scholars who choose to remain within the system fight to retain vital connections with one another and with activists working outside of the university environs. However, in my view, undertaking such scholarship only lends a fig leaf of respectability to what are at root capitalist enterprises; consequently a purist and more sustainable solution requires that radical intellectuals step out of the university world and work to create alternative, people-powered institutions that can seriously challenge the status quo.
As my research and learning has imparted this world view within me, I now find myself in a position where accepting this PhD is not possible. With this in mind I wish to inform you that I will not be handing in the revised PhD manuscript, titled “Mediating Social Engineering: Moving Beyond Elite Manipulation of Democracy.” My decision is consistent with the views expressed above.
I wish to emphasize that the research and analyses that informed this decision were undertaken in the closing months of my candidature, and even upon handing in my manuscript I was still unsure as to how I should proceed with regard to accepting the PhD. Rather than simply resign my candidature prior to handing in my thesis, I determined that a more powerful political statement could be made by rejecting the concept of receiving a PhD after it was accepted by the external examiners. In this way, detractors could not assert that I was incapable of completing a PhD, only that I had decided not to accept it. The difference is critical given my view of the political role that universities fulfill in justifying plutocracy.
Critically, I wish to demonstrate that I am rejecting the formal academic institution and not the reverse. For this reason, I have waited for the Chair’s final decision, which required only minor changes to the thesis, before informing Griffith University that I would not be making the suggested corrections.
Yours sincerely
Michael Barker
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 11:44 AM, Jon Sharp (LTS) <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear N
I think if you re-read my email you will see that I am not necessarily claiming that the forms of achievement you mention are not in themselves valid. I stated that, ’ the holding of a PhD is an indicator only of one’s ability to follow a certain approach’ (key qualifiers in bold for clarity).
My primary interest is the academic study of magic and of the philosophical frameworks that might allow for the possible functional effectiveness of magic as praxis. I am not overly interested in global tertiary education systems and their relative merits. My reason for posting was to suggest that a more polite approach to discussions would be welcome.
I’d be happy to discuss issues relating to the academic study of magic with you, but won’t have anything further to say on the function or value of a PhD
Jon
C J Sharp
Head of Learning & Teaching Services
Room 0.27 - Registry
University of East Anglia
Norwich Research Park
NORWICH NR4 7TJ
Office: 01603 597374
Mob: 07795 666 465
This email is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient please accept my apologies; please do not disclose, copy or distribute information in this email or take any action in reliance on its contents: to do so is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. Please inform me that this message has gone astray before deleting it. Thank you for your co-operation.
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of N.W. Azal
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 10:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] academic career
My own view is that the holding of a PhD is an indicator only of one’s ability to follow a certain approach to knowledge acquisition, analysis and dissemination.
Can you explain to me how attainment of an 'ijaza from Al-Azhar or Najaf or conferral of teaching rights by traditional institutions such as ones in Nepal or elsewhere is not an indicator of a certain approach to knowledge, acquisition, analysis and dissemination? Is indicators of a certain approach to knowledge acquisition, analysis and dissemination only valid and legitimate within the loci of Western secular cultural contexts whereby all others from elsewhere are not? I am sorry, but the insistence of Segal and his generally patronizing condescensions are indicative of a highly culturally hegemonic (and very racist) approach to what is scholarship.
N
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 10:57 AM, Jon Sharp (LTS) <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear N
I may be out of step with others on this list, but to my mind the purpose of JISC lists such as this one is to facilitate academic discussion. It would be possible to mount a carefully reasoned argument against the necessity of attaining a PhD as a pre-requisite for valid or valuable academic scholarship. However, insults and unsupported claims about the motivations or personal qualities of other list members is simply unhelpful and impolite. Impassioned debate and a rigorous and frank exchange of views is a good thing and seems wholly appropriate to this list, but sniping personal attacks just reflect badly on the person posting them.
My own view is that the holding of a PhD is an indicator only of one’s ability to follow a certain approach to knowledge acquisition, analysis and dissemination. It is not an indicator of intellectual acuity, understanding or wisdom. That said, academia does not make any such claims as to the import of the completion of a doctorate and for all that it may lack doctoral study does develop a number of useful skills. A PhD does not guarantee the veracity of your claims (and I don’t think that academia suggests that it does), but it does demonstrate that you have some basic training in the skills associated with scholarship. There are a myriad of problems with the approach to doctoral study in many Universities and with some of the ideological assumptions that underpin much of the discourse in the humanities and social sciences. However, those problems themselves are best addressed by the deployment of the sort of reasoning and analysis that PhD study in a reputable institution provides.
Of course, I am in the process of completing my draft thesis and if unsuccessful I may well decide that doctorates are not so important after all J
C J Sharp
Head of Learning & Teaching Services
Room 0.27 - Registry
University of East Anglia
Norwich Research Park
NORWICH NR4 7TJ
Office: 01603 597374
Mob: 07795 666 465
This email is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient please accept my apologies; please do not disclose, copy or distribute information in this email or take any action in reliance on its contents: to do so is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. Please inform me that this message has gone astray before deleting it. Thank you for your co-operation.
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of N.W. Azal
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 9:33 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] academic career
Dear Robert Segal,
Your elitist Ivory Tower, territorial knee-jerk buffoonery proves my point. Believe in your own hype all you like.
Good day!
N
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 10:27 AM, Segal, Professor Robert A. <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
April 23
Dear N,
Somehow I have never come upon your name in any academic discussion of either theories of myth or theories of religion.
I doubt that you are in any position to assess my work. By professionalism I mean exactly the training that entitles one to evaluate the work of others in one's field. Evaluations can still be unfair and even uninformed, but at least they have behind them the attainment of the credentials that others recognize. Maybe you will divulge your own.
May I suggest that you ask around to find out what is meant by not only a non sequitur but also an ad hominem argument. You really don't grasp either. If someone says of a group, DON'T LISTEN TO THEM, THEY'RE COMMUNISTS, that is an ad hominem argument, though there are qualifications that would need to be taken into account to make the argument altogether ad hominem. I will spare you those qualifications.
If you were a trained expert in either theories of myth or theories of religion, I would definitely want to know to what deficiencies in your publications you are referring. But you are not. Your criticisms of me, which you are most welcome to state publicly, would be on a par with Karen Armstrong's criticism of translations of the Bible or Homer or the Koran.
You are the one who is arrogant, and you have yet to tell us on what your presumed authority rests.
Robert Segal (Prof.)
PS WITH WHOEVER should be WITH WHOMEVER
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of N.W. Azal [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 8:24 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] academic career
Dear Professor Segal,
What you call ad hominem (which it wasn't, because I was speaking in generalities) are points of fact about the politicized industry you belong to, and they have been commented on by more than just me. But your condescending and patronizing tone of institutional superiority, with your credential-thumping, also speaks volumes for itself, wherever or with whoever you have hob-knobbed with during your career.
But if you want ad hom, I'll give it to you: to me your scholarship is completely mediocre, at best, and your published writings have never impressed me very much.
My credentials are intact and I have academic training. But smug, arrogant people in the Academy who insist on their professional territorialism and patronize the way you do always get my goat, and so I set them straight. Think of it as a kosmic balancing mechanism of sorts to remind people like you that you are not all that and so maybe you should get at the top of your game!
N
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 1:37 AM, Segal, Professor Robert A. <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
April 23
Dear N.,
I feared that what has already come to pass would do so--not on the part of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, whose gracious reply preceded your second one, but on your part.
Your ad hominem attacks on me are more silly than insulting. Your claim that I have built my career exploiting non-Westerners is fantasy. Sticking to what one knows is one criterion of scholarship. Scholarship and ignorance are mutually exclusive.
To begin with, what are YOUR credentials?
What do YOU know about the study of myth--the example I cited? I claimed that Armstrong knows nothing about the study of myth and does not seem to recognize that she would need a PhD to be able to justify the pronouncements tbat she makes. Are you challenging my assessment of her work? If so, do tell us on what grounds.
What do you know about the study of religion, my overlapping field of expertise?
Of course, one can master things on one's own. And a PhD is merely necessary, not sufficient, for scholarship. There are plenty of PhDs who are not talented. But a PhD is what scholarship requires--and not just in the US or the UK.
I do grant some exceptions. For example, folklore has traditionally attracted some persons who are not academics. But try getting a job in folklore today without a PhD.
Karen Armstrong writes for Western audiences.
I have participated in academic conferences in places like South Korea, Japan, India, and Israel. Are at least some of them sufficiently non-Western for you? You would find that they strive to emulate the intellectual standards of the West in many fields, including the arts. The conference in Jammu, India, at which I was the kick-off speaker, duplicated the conduct of any Western conference (except that the food and the conversation were much better). The result of colonialism? Whatever the source, the West has long set the standard to which academics aspire. Wonder why so many budding academics seek degrees from the US and the UK and Western Europe?
I trust that you know the annual world rankings of universities. Universities in China, India, Japan, Singapore, and many other places are committed to achieving excellence--as measured by "Western" criteria. Have they been brainwashed--or enlightened?
Your reaction to my innocent claim evinces a view of the West and of the world as a whole that is decades out of date.
And you still confuse an analogy with a non sequitur.
You are welcome to reply, but I doubt that I will do so in turn.
Robert Segal (Prof.)
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of N.W. Azal [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 11:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] academic career
Dear Professor Segal,
Your very much culturally located notions of what constitutes scholarship, and a bona fide scholar, is only accepted as legitimate within the limited confines of your cultural Anglo-European contextual cloister, that is, the elitism and professional territorialism of your own Ivory Tower industry in the West. The rest of the world, fortunately, does operate completely yet by the stultifying impositions of such uniquely arrogant expressions of intellectual colonialism as how you have articulated the matter below.
There are institutions in the world - such as those in Qom in Iran or Najaf in Iraq or in Nepal or in Japan or elsewhere - with very much sophisticated intellectual traditions of great antiquity that do not grant Western Ph.Ds, and many of the scholars produced by these very older institutions produce thinkers and scholars who can write and intellectualize concentric circles around the creme de la creme of what the Western Ivory Tower has ever produced. Of course, later on many such figures from non-Western institutions of learning become topics of study where good people such as yourself build your Western academic careers writing about them, raising funds and lobbying assorted foundations for research grants to publish their papers and writings, etc.
Be that as it may, if you cannot see the vacuous illogicality of your comparison of a Western Ph.D in the humanities/social sciences to a pilot's license, then what can one say. But please note that your career or department is not an aircraft so kindly do not condescend or insult intelligences of those who know the score.
Good day!
N
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 12:03 AM, Segal, Professor Robert A. <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> wrote:
April 22
Dear N. W. Azal,
I don't want to get involved in another long exchange that will simply anger persons on the list.
I was saying what is obvious: not that one must be a scholar but that to be a scholar, one must have a PhD. What you call IVORY TOWER ELITISM, I call professionalism. And by the way, the more prestigious the university that grants one a PhD, the more scholarly one is assumed to be.
Armstrong has not needed a doctorate to sell books, but her books are not scholarly, and no academic would assign anything she has written to even a first-year course on myth, on religion, on the Bible, or on Islam. Whether she recognizes that her stuff is sub-academic, I don't know. Maybe she does, and does not care. Certainly her many admiring readers do not know or care about her missing credentials. There are scores of writers on myth, not least Joseph Campbell, who have hardly suffered because they are nonacademics.
I don't catch the non sequitur (the correct spelling) in my statement. I may be wrong, but I am not thereby illogical.
Robert
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>] On Behalf Of N.W. Azal [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>]
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 10:15 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] academic career
Writers without academic credentials are dismissed as popularizers or worse. Not to have a PhD is akin to wanting to become a pilot without a license.
And that is the most poignant expression of Ivory Tower elitism, if there ever was, with an non sequitor of an example for the ages to boot!
On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 11:06 PM, Segal, Professor Robert A. <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>>> wrote:
April 22
Dear Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,
If I may offer two cents (or pence): if you wish to enter the academic world, you need a PhD. Writers without academic credentials are dismissed as popularizers or worse. Not to have a PhD is akin to wanting to become a pilot without a license.
Karen Armstrong is the proverbial exception that proves the rule. Undeniably, she makes a healthy living from her books. But she is a joke. She has never done any research in any of the areas in which she has published--with, I suppose, the exception of her autobiography, which I wouldn't read even if I were immortal. She has no conception of scholarship. She thinks that she can write on the Bible without knowledge of Hebrew or Greek. She has written, I believe, on Islam--without, I bet, even being to able to identify the Arabic alphabet. She lists fewer sources in her bibliographies than first-year students at accredited universities would be expected to list in their essays.
My own field is theories of myth, and I reviewed her SHORT HISTORY OF MYTH for the Jungian journal, itself far from academic, SPRING. I ended my review by calling her book the worst book on myth that I have ever read. She knows nothing about the topic.
I know nothing about you and would not have uttered a peep had you know cited Armstrong as an example of what you might be seeking. Obviously, you are free to ignore all that I have said.
There are academics who write for nonacademic audiences. My own MYTH appears in Oxford's VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION series, which operates out of the trade division and which is marketed to lay persons. But the authors of its own 200 or so volumes are experts in their fields.
With best wishes,
Robert (Segal)
Sixth Century Chair in Religious Studies
University of Aberdeen
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>>] On Behalf Of OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>>]
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 9:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>><mailto:ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC@JISCMAIL.AC.UK<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>>
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Looking for a publisher for translation of al-Buni's Great Sun of Gnoses
Thanks, Peter.
I'm developing a strategy to explore the possibility of earning a living from scholarly writing which uses the full academic framework, one way of describing the cultural identity that marks an academic work.
A writer who seems to have done this is Karen Armstrong but her career benefits from a peculiar confluence of factors- the sensationalism of her move from cloister to public life in her search for religious meaning, as described in her autobiographical Through the Narrow Gate and The Spiral Stair, her autobiographies giving graphic form to her religious and philosophical struggles in the context of her life's vicissitudes, bringing the metaphysical issues she engages with closer to the reader, her presence on TV, a list of books that study religious history in terms of her conception of religious meaning, a teaching appointment and newspaper writing.
How helpful would it be to adapt a related approach- making the subject of one's writing accessible to the reader in terms of its touching an intimate nerve in the depths of efforts at understanding that shape human life?
How helpful would it be to adapt online media for developing and stimulating a market for scholarly writing?
I have been struck by the interest shown by readers in various general interest online groups and on Facebook in some of my more ambitious essays. I have even got input from these sources on one or two of those essays that I have integrated into the draft of the essay. Someone once asked whether there was a book where a particular essay I posted on Facebook can be found.
In enticing a reader to part with their money, various factors are at play. Scholarly books are among the best on any subject. Publication by a scholarly focused publishing house is often an imprimatur of high quality, at times the highest quality. Some of the best books on the Hindu and Buddhist phenomenon of Tantra , some of these books demonstrating par excellence the erotic dimension of Tantra that Western enthusiasts seem to have found so fascinating, are in scholarly works, perhaps more so than in trade publications. The only translation known to me of Abhinavagupta's famous erotic mysticism in Chapter 29 of his Tantraloka is the book<http://www.scribd.com/doc/54134989/John-R-Dupuche-Abhinavagupta-The-Kula-Ritual> that came out of John Dupuche's PhD.
Perhaps one could offer a smorgasbord of works, meticulous, rich in ideas, imaginative appeal and communicative strategies, from the dialogue to the essay, rigorously argued and yet possibly anchored in what can be seen as universally intimate to the self. Advertise widely using online and possibly offline outlets. Cultivate a presence on various social networks that whets people appetites for one's work. Give workshops and introduce and or sell one's books at such gatherings, among other strategies.
I had once thought I would use self publishing but it does not motivate me any more, because it seems too narrowly focused for me. I prefer the professionalism and strong book list of an academic publisher and the scope of a trade publisher.
thanks
oluwatoyin vincent adepoju
The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.
The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.