And I
am sure that I am sometimes guilty of playing such lines myself.
On the other, it’s fairly obvious that what’s driving this kind of discussion is not an engagement with the topic of the lecture
or paper delivered, but peacock-like preening. It’s a very male set of responses (even when done by women). It is, as one
of my female colleagues has aptly put it, an exercise in ‘willy-waving’. Power games in a non-Italian form.
That said, the seminar style in the States leaves me feeling rather at sea, too. There are (as I found at Stanford) some examples
of the British mode, but by and large everyone is seamlessly polite. It’s not that they don’t have strong views about the
quality of the lectures they hear (as you discover when you talk about it afterwards), but round the seminar table, it’s flattery
all the way: ‘Thank you so much for that masterly performance ...’/‘I learned an enormous amount from your excellent paper
...’
To start with, it makes you feel very warm. But then you think: How would I know if I had done a really lousy lecture? Would
my best friend tell me? Or is there a subtle code among all this eulogy that I just haven’t mastered yet?
Comments
A colleague has a wonderful account of a Department Meeting where a woman faculty member said; ‘OK chaps, dicks on the table’,
which may be what Mary is referring to. But there is a serious problem here: how does one react to a lousy paper? The UK ‘interesting’
is a helpful usage, and I once got mileage from confusing Merkwurdig with Bemerkenswert in German, though I lost all standing. Can we invent an international gesture (probably already to be found on Greek vases
and in Terence mss.) for ‘Could do better?’ ... Or, in a democracy ruled by the RAE and its collaborators, must all seminar
papers be equal?
Q. H. FLACK
Italians asking questions: ... Gilbert and George turned up one lunchtime at the British School at Rome to actually talk.
At the end a guy from the Messagero made a longish rambling point ( c .10 minutes), more or less in the form of a question. At the end George murmured, ‘Interesting.’ The first seminar I went
to (in the late sixties) was given by Peter Brown, who even then was grooming himself to be a guru. There was no discussion
or questions (how could there be ?). Since I did not know what a seminar was, I assumed that it was simply a lecture with
a smaller audience.
ANTHONY ALCOCK
I have noticed expressions of power in who chooses to sit where.
In a small format seminar where 10–12 people are seated around the usual configuration of tables the person who sits to the
first left or right of the speaker often wishes to dominate the event. Interestingly, in a graduate student seminar setting,
it is often the weakest student in the room who also will choose to sit next to the professor. I guess you could call it power
siphoning ...
The person who sits the farthest away from the speaker, at the opposite end of the table, wishes to establish a rival center
of power as he or she considers himself to be a higher authority than the speaker and will, of course, talk incessantly ...
EILEEN
Howard Mohr’s essential study ‘How to Talk Minnesotan’ shows that the good people of Lake Wobegon have the true word Q. H.
FLack wants for disposing of such phenomena as inferior seminar papers. It is: ‘That’s different’, with appropriately Scandinavian
pitch accent on the initial word.
OLIVER NICHOLSON
It is very hard to generalise accurately about the US. At Cornell, where I had my first post, Lisa Jardine and I were scolded
for asking sharp questions of a distinguished visitor who had given a shoddy lecture. At Princeton, the Davis Center under
Lawrence Stone was the scene of many a public disemboweling. At Chicago, where I studied, there is also a tradition of critical
questions, but quite different in style from those at Princeton. I’m sure the UK
am sure that I am sometimes guilty of playing such lines myself.
On the other, it’s fairly obvious that what’s driving this kind of discussion is not an engagement with the topic of the lecture
or paper delivered, but peacock-like preening. It’s a very male set of responses (even when done by women). It is, as one
of my female colleagues has aptly put it, an exercise in ‘willy-waving’. Power games in a non-Italian form.
That said, the seminar style in the States leaves me feeling rather at sea, too. There are (as I found at Stanford) some examples
of the British mode, but by and large everyone is seamlessly polite. It’s not that they don’t have strong views about the
quality of the lectures they hear (as you discover when you talk about it afterwards), but round the seminar table, it’s flattery
all the way: ‘Thank you so much for that masterly performance ...’/‘I learned an enormous amount from your excellent paper
...’
To start with, it makes you feel very warm. But then you think: How would I know if I had done a really lousy lecture? Would
my best friend tell me? Or is there a subtle code among all this eulogy that I just haven’t mastered yet?
Comments
A colleague has a wonderful account of a Department Meeting where a woman faculty member said; ‘OK chaps, dicks on the table’,
which may be what Mary is referring to. But there is a serious problem here: how does one react to a lousy paper? The UK ‘interesting’
is a helpful usage, and I once got mileage from confusing Merkwurdig with Bemerkenswert in German, though I lost all standing. Can we invent an international gesture (probably already to be found on Greek vases
and in Terence mss.) for ‘Could do better?’ ... Or, in a democracy ruled by the RAE and its collaborators, must all seminar
papers be equal?
Q. H. FLACK
Italians asking questions: ... Gilbert and George turned up one lunchtime at the British School at Rome to actually talk.
At the end a guy from the Messagero made a longish rambling point ( c .10 minutes), more or less in the form of a question. At the end George murmured, ‘Interesting.’ The first seminar I went
to (in the late sixties) was given by Peter Brown, who even then was grooming himself to be a guru. There was no discussion
or questions (how could there be ?). Since I did not know what a seminar was, I assumed that it was simply a lecture with
a smaller audience.
ANTHONY ALCOCK
I have noticed expressions of power in who chooses to sit where.
In a small format seminar where 10–12 people are seated around the usual configuration of tables the person who sits to the
first left or right of the speaker often wishes to dominate the event. Interestingly, in a graduate student seminar setting,
it is often the weakest student in the room who also will choose to sit next to the professor. I guess you could call it power
siphoning ...
The person who sits the farthest away from the speaker, at the opposite end of the table, wishes to establish a rival center
of power as he or she considers himself to be a higher authority than the speaker and will, of course, talk incessantly ...
EILEEN
Howard Mohr’s essential study ‘How to Talk Minnesotan’ shows that the good people of Lake Wobegon have the true word Q. H.
FLack wants for disposing of such phenomena as inferior seminar papers. It is: ‘That’s different’, with appropriately Scandinavian
pitch accent on the initial word.
OLIVER NICHOLSON
It is very hard to generalise accurately about the US. At Cornell, where I had my first post, Lisa Jardine and I were scolded
for asking sharp questions of a distinguished visitor who had given a shoddy lecture. At Princeton, the Davis Center under
Lawrence Stone was the scene of many a public disemboweling. At Chicago, where I studied, there is also a tradition of critical
questions, but quite different in style from those at Princeton. I’m sure the UK
Similar Books
