Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

On Commencement Speakers

There has recently been something of a flutter about the withdrawal, under pressure, of several scheduled Commencement speakers for various sorts of reasons diffusely related to politics, controversial viewpoints, or associations and activities with which some administrator feels disquieted (or with which the administrator believes that some influential, or prominent, or loud group of alumni or students will feel disquieted). It is difficult to get a sense for any unifying theme of controversy in these pressured withdrawals, but together they reflect the sort of soft and not particularly committed progressive pastiche of disapproval that prevails at many colleges and universities: Condoleezza Rice was part of the Bush Administration; Ayaan Hirsi Ali said critical things about Islam; Christine Lagarde presides over an organization which is felt by some students to be “patriarchal” and unhelpful to the poor.

Incensed finger-waggers have observed that these pressured withdrawals are very damaging to universities, because, after all, universities are claimed to be sites of open and respectful argument where ideas can be challenged and debated freely. What kind of closed-minded places are these universities if they cannot engage respectfully with controversial views and encourage their students to do likewise? What about the free exchange of ideas? What about confronting perspectives different than one’s own–those that are alien or that induce alienation?

This all seems rather silly. First, is it really the case that graduations are moments where the university displays what are claimed to be its intellectual virtues in chief? Does anybody believe that the very tail end of the higher educational experience, right as the students are walking out the door, is the moment to showcase these qualities–a moment where nobody but the Commencement speaker actually gets a chance to express any views? Speeches delivered at Commencements are nearly universally empty, gaseous, platitudinous, and saccharine. That is by design. That is their function. They are the most perfunctory part of the ceremony. The speaker pumps the bellows for a bit while the assembly listens with half an ear; the other ear and a half is preoccupied with much more interesting matters, like wondering whether one is sweating too much, or about a sudden acrid smell. The parents of the graduates pretend to listen while clucking about their dearest ones in the crowd. And then, at long last, it’s on to the reception bar with all deliberate speed.

What the pressured withdrawals might suggest is that many universities really are not places where students learn and exercise the habits of intellectual engagement and exchange in any appreciable degree at all. The Commencement speech is just the last in a long trail of hot air. Indeed, some have suggested that many American universities are simply gargantuan machines dedicated to the cultivation of middle-class tastes and distinctively shallow civic points of view–mills for producing good and voracious consumers with whatever miscellany of attendant politics one needs to get on without incident or complaint. That seems slightly sour, but if it is true, then the graduation speech is of a piece with the rest of the experience.

I’ve made it to some of my own graduations and skipped just as many. I can’t say I ever felt regret about those I skipped. Of the many Commencement addresses I have heard, not a single one I can remember provoked deep intellectual engagement or reflection in me. Maybe I was unlucky with the speakers; certainly they were unlucky with me. Perhaps the problem is that I can’t remember any of them. I do know that the speeches all contained the requisite elements of vaguely Whiggish optimism, indistinct exhortation, and comfortable banality that characterizes much of university life. They were delivered by people with anodyne, milk-and-water backgrounds and views who had reached prominent positions. So it should come as no surprise at all when a university calibrates the selection of its Commencement speaker accordingly.

UPDATE: An interesting, somewhat different, perspective here (though I can’t subscribe to any claims about a university’s “democratic values”)

Posted on by

Whittaker, “Religion and Society in Middle Bronze Age Greece”

This month, Cambridge University Press will publish Religion and Society in Middle Bronze Age Greece by Helene Whittaker (University of Gothenburg). The publisher’s description follows.Religion and Society in Middle Bronze Age Greece

The Middle Helladic period has received little attention, partially because of scholars’ view of it as merely the prelude to the Mycenaean period and partially because of the dearth of archaeological evidence from the period. In this book, Helène Whittaker demonstrates that Middle Helladic Greece is far more interesting than its material culture might at first suggest. Whittaker comprehensively reviews and discusses the archaeological evidence for religion on the Greek mainland, focusing on the relationship between religious expression and ideology. The book argues that religious beliefs and rituals played a significant role in the social changes that were occurring at the time. The arguments and conclusions of this book will be relevant beyond the Greek Bronze Age and will contribute to the general archaeological debate on prehistoric religion.

Posted on by

Chhibber, “Religious Practice and Democracy in India”

This July, Cambridge University Press will publish Religious Practice and Democracy in India by Pradeep Chhibber (University of California, Berkeley). The publisher’s description follows.Religious Practice and Democracy in India

This book demonstrates the close relationship between religion and democracy in India. Religious practice creates ties among citizens that can generate positive and democratic political outcomes. In pursuing this line of inquiry the book questions a dominant strand in some contemporary social sciences – that a religious denomination (Catholic, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and so on) is sufficient to explain the relationship between religion and politics or that religion and democracy are antithetical to each other. The book makes a strong case for studying religious practice and placing that practice in the panoply of other social practices and showing that religious practice is positively associated with democracy.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Wolf, “Juan de Segovia and the Fight for Peace: Christians and Muslims in the Fifteenth Century”

From the University of Notre Dame Press, here’s an interesting work in the Juan de Segoviahistory of religion, Juan de Segovia and the Fight for Peace: Christians and Muslims in the Fifteenth Century, by Anne Marie Wolfe (University of Maine at Farmington). The publisher’s description follows.

Juan de Segovia (d. 1458), theologian, translator of the Qur’an, and lifelong advocate for the forging of peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims, was one of Europe’s leading intellectuals. Today, however, few scholars are familiar with this important fifteenth-century figure. In this well-documented study, Anne Marie Wolf presents a clear, chronological narrative that follows the thought and career of Segovia, who taught at the University of Salamanca, represented the university at the Council of Basel (1431–1449), and spent his final years arguing vigorously that Europe should eschew war with the ascendant Ottoman Turks and instead strive to convert them peacefully to Christianity.

What could make a prominent thinker, especially one who moved in circles of power, depart so markedly from the dominant views of his day and advance arguments that he knew would subject him to criticism and even ridicule? Although some historians have suggested that the multifaith heritage of his native Spain accounts for his unconventional belief that peaceful dialogue with Muslims was possible, Wolf argues that other aspects of his life and thought were equally important. For example, his experiences at the Council of Basel, where his defense of conciliarism in the face of opposition contributed to his ability to defend an unpopular position and where his insistence on conversion through peaceful means was bolstered by discussions about the proper way to deal with the Hussites, refined his arguments that peaceful conversion was prefereable to war. Ultimately Wolf demonstrates that Segovia’s thought on Islam and the proper Christian stance toward the Muslim world was consistent with his approach to other endeavors and with cultural and intellectual movements at play throughout his career.