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CSUDH - Habermas - UWP

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: March 4, 2002
Latest Update: March 4, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Class Effects in Higher Education

Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individaul Authors, March 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.

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This is the first in a series of pieces in which teachers talk about the time constraints put on teaching. I called the series "classtch.htm" to signify that these working constraints are class-based. And to ask for an understanded of the embedded college teacher. See Seyla Benhabib and Our Version of Good Faith. This is the best example I've come across lately as to the drain of intelligent creativity in the academy. Steve's need to take part in academic discourse that is helpful to many of us in the same predicament, is constrained by record-keeping certification tasks that in no way enhance his teaching.

On Sunday, March 3, 2002, Steve Rosenthal posted to PSN:

I'm trying to finish grading mid-semester essay exams, because my grades are due tomorrow, and I've stayed out of the debate over whether to change the name of the Section, because I had the opportunity to spell out my position in From the Left. But I want to state my strong endorsement of and agreement with David Fasenfest's discussion of Marxism and the mission of the journal Critical Sociology.

David reminds us that Marx was not an economic determinist. During virtually all of his adult life Marx worked to build political organizations of the working class. He wrote extensively about just about every major political struggle that occurred during his lifetime, especially the sharpest political struggles (wars). Political scientist Alan Gilbert examined Marx from this angle more than two decades ago in his excellent book "Marx's Politics." Marx's writings on the Civil War in the U.S. themselves fill an entire volume. We might say that his efforts to criticize the ideology and culture of capitalism made him a "cultural Marxist" long before any members of the Frankfurt School were born.

I'd like to write more, but I've got to get back to the exams.

Steve Rosenthal

More soon . . . jeanne