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Aaron Hanlon Profile picture
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7 Dec, 6 tweets, 2 min read
1) I've said for years now that 'STEM' vs. 'humanities' is a silly and destructive dichotomy, as is the blame game that goes along with it. I've also said non-biz 'STEM' fields will face pressure similar to 'hum' fields. Viz., cuts to the math dept. at Murdoch U:
2) By 'non-biz' I mean fields without a direct biz application & that don't pull in profit for the institution. 'STEM' marketing relies on the 'T' and the 'E,' & 'STEM' has been valuable branding as biz incentives have increasingly driven higher ed governance & policy choices. ..
3) The 'S' and the 'M' won't be able to ride this marketing wave forever. People will realize an English degree and a biology degree have near identical employment prospects and start asking ?s of biology they now do of English. ...
4) The best response to this problem is to avoid the desire to blame and be jealous of other fields, including tech and engineering fields seemingly flush with cash. Those fields don't work w/o progress in basic science, for example. ...
5) It's crucial that knowledge workers across disciplines grow up & recognize that knowledge work is a collective enterprise & we all have an essential part to play. Put ego aside. When any department is on the chopping block, *every* department should stand against it. ...
6) (h/t @robjohnnoble) /end

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More from @AaronRHanlon

Aaron Hanlon Profile picture
5 Dec
1) Quick thread about tenure (I'm up for tenure right now). I value the prospect of tenure. Highly. I don't think people like Dean White at UC Boulder understand that if you take that away then people like me work elsewhere, including in another industry altogether. ...
2) I quit a consulting job to get a PhD in English. In 2008. I wasn't naive abt what it meant for my financial & employment prospects to make that decision. If you're thinking, whoa, that was stupid, I don't agree, but that should tell you how much I value the prospect of tenure.
3) I wouldn't have quit my job to do a PhD if there were no prospect of tenure. Notwithstanding the impression you have by now from this thread of my appetite for risk, I'm an extremely risk averse person. The best I can explain this is with a poker analogy (sorry). ...
Read 12 tweets
Aaron Hanlon Profile picture
11 Nov
1) Thread for literature scholars and psychology researchers, both of whom will be cranky with me but for different reasons. Let’s talk about ‘Literary’ versus ‘Popular’ or ‘Genre’ fiction in this new(ish) study about their effects on readers. psypost.org/2020/10/readin…
2) Here’s how the authors of the study distinguish between Literary and Popular fiction:
3) Lots of interesting stuff in here, much of which literature scholars would agree with (that's part of the problem, I think, and will explain). But I'd break it down roughly this way:
Read 15 tweets
Aaron Hanlon Profile picture
28 Oct
1) You’ll sometimes hear reporters for right-wing campus ‘watchdog’ groups (pressure groups to chill faculty speech) working the non-newsworthy professor Twitter beat say ‘I’m just reporting, I don’t want my target to get threats and harassment.’ I think that’s genuine. HOWEVER..
2) It’s like you’ve watched someone lob a water balloon into a crowd of 100 about 1000 times, and some of those times it was even you who threw the balloon. ‘I was just observing the trajectory, I didn’t mean for anyone to get wet.’ ...
3) You really need to stop and think about what you’re doing. There’s no plausible deniability here. You’re part of an apparatus designed to chill faculty speech by leveraging media networks to whip up angry mobs that threaten and harass the targets and call for their jobs. ...
Read 4 tweets
Aaron Hanlon Profile picture
26 Oct
1) I started as an economics major and now teach and study literature for a living. Here's a short Monday morning thread (especially for students) on how that happened and why I still value perspectives from where I started.
2) In college I paired political science w/ econ, ended up dropping econ for legal studies (thinking I'd go to law school). Let go of econ bc the people teaching it to me were speaking of certainties that didn't seem at all certain. I lost trust in it.
3) This experience prejudiced my orientation to the social sciences in general. By the time I realized this and mustered the resolve to change something, I was about to graduate. I took one literature course in college, a Victorian lit. survey. That's it.
Read 9 tweets
Aaron Hanlon Profile picture
14 Jul
1) It's not the profound lesson I wanted to learn from all this, but one thing Trumpism + pandemic have taught me is that the US has a much higher percentage than I thought of adults who are simply immature. It's been astonishing to see people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s act out.
2) I'm of the generation that supposedly never grew up, needs cheap symbolic affirmation ('participation trophies!'), lives in our parents' basement, etc. But in terms of civic duty, there are far too many grown adults metaphorically living in my basement right now. Get out!!!
3) I think an important part of maturity is the ability to make small (sometimes large) personal sacrifices for the greater good. I consider wearing a mask--which is proven to reduce viral transmission--during a pandemic a small personal sacrifice.
Read 15 tweets
Aaron Hanlon Profile picture
9 Jul
1) Here are some simple questions to which anyone using the term 'cancel culture' in earnest should have answers:
2) (a) Is The Professor Watchlist part of 'cancel culture'?
3) (b) Are media orgs such as Breitbart, The College Fix, Campus Reform, and Talking Points USA part of 'cancel culture'?
Read 17 tweets

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