Professor defends academic value of Chavez’s controversial gift to Obama

Bruce Podobnik, associate professor of sociology, shared his thoughts with FOXNews.com about the book Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez handed to President Obama at the Summit of the Americas earlier this month. Titled “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent,” the book was published by Eduardo Galeano in 1971 and remains controversial for its critical depiction of the United State’s role in the colonization of Latin America. Podobnik included the book in his course “Latin America in Cultural Perspective” last fall, but notes that the text presents a one-sided analysis, which he offset with Walter Rostow’s “The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto.” According to Podobnik, the importance of such a comparative analysis is that “the students get exposed to a polarized discussion that continues to go on today.”

FOXNews.com (New York, NY) Book Chavez Gave to Obama Is Used as Core Text on Many College Campuses

27 April 2009

• faculty
• government
• imperialism
• In the News
• Latin America
• literature
• politics
• sociology

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Archivists Doug Erickson and Paul Merchant explain the importance of written archives

Doug Erickson, head of special collections/archivist at Watzek Library, and Paul Merchant, William Stafford archivist special collections archivist at the Watzek Library:

Erickson and Merchant were quoted in an article by the Oregon Council for the Humanities about the hidden treasures found in library archives. Unfortunately, digital technology is quickly contributing to the extinction of paper archives, said Erickson. “We communicate in very short and spontaneous ways now, rather than being methodical and contemplative about what we are writing,” he said. Merchant added, “Word-processing programs that overwrite previous drafts will result in fewer early versions being preserved. There may be poets and novelists who end up keeping only their final version. This will be very impoverishing for literary scholars.”

One of the major concerns archivists face involves the longevity of digital technology. Erickson pointed out that archivists know how to preserve written documents, but the same is not true for archival CDs. Merchant also believes that works deemed to be “inferior” may not be saved in the digital world, which could lead to the elimination of great authors’ novels. “We can’t anticipate the judgments of posterity, and masterpieces sometimes lie hidden,” Erickson said. “Emily Dickinson is the perfect example. She was not very well known when she died, and it is a miracle that we have her work. It is in little bound volumes that she left behind. It’s wonderful, just wonderful. But someone might easily have thrown those away.”

Read the article.

15 April 2009

• archives
• library
• literature
• publication
• staff
• technology

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Assistant Professor of English published in Modern Language Notes

Karen Gross, assistant professor of English:

Gross published “Scholar Saints and Boccaccio’s Trattatello in laude di Dante” in the Italian issue of Modern Language Notes (MLN) in January. Published by Johns Hopkins Press, each volume of MLN has one issue per year on French, Italian, German, and Spanish literature and covers all time periods. MLN focuses on critical literary studies in these four languages as well as recent work in comparative literature. Gross’ article discusses Boccaccio’s biography of Dante, which has long frustrated readers, and how it can be understood in part as a rewriting of the life of St. Thomas Aquinas.

17 March 2009

• faculty
• literature
• publication

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