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About a week ago, Simon J. Cook published a piece on the SWG, via our column A Sense of History, called Fawlty Towers. This article is the latest in a series Simon is doing for the column that looks at the analogy of the tower in Tolkien's lecture-turned-essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics." In this particular piece, he challenges Tom Shippey's reading of the analogy. When we first discussed this series, Simon asked me if I was comfortable with publishing articles that were critical of major Tolkien scholars, such as Shippey, and how they read the analogy.
I am not, as people reading here know, an academic, nor am I interested in becoming one. Since I am an independent scholar, friends sometimes ask, "Why don't you teach college?" and my answer amounts to, "LOL I LIKE TO EAT." But in reality, I have little interest in teaching at that level, namely because I am very good at teaching at the level I do (early adolescence) and believe I make the most difference there, when students are first beginning to deeply engage with history and literature. And the openness of my two areas of interest—Tolkien studies and fan studies—to independent scholarship means I don't have to join the ranks of academia to do the research I love. All this adds up to: I am not an academic.
So perhaps naively, my response to Simon was along the lines of, "Why would I care if you criticize the ideas of major Tolkien scholars??" I assumed that scholars of Professor Shippey's caliber can and have surely weathered criticisms of their ideas far worse than Simon was posing as part of the newsletter on a small Tolkien fan site. I honestly did not even believe they'd notice, as they have never noticed us before.
Simon has more experience with academia than me, as his question reveals. So that I cannot be charged with telling Professor Shippey what he really thinks, I will say that, in the wake of Simon's "Fawlty Towers," he appears to be pissed. Quite pissed. Simon's article was published Saturday afternoon; by Monday morning, Professor Shippey had posted a retort on Academia.edu.
Professor Shippey makes some fair points that I have taken on as the editor to the piece. Discrepancy of dates is likely due to the Works Cited being finished by me, not Simon. Perhaps, too, I should have pushed more on Simon's inferences about Professor Shippey's beliefs. However, the tone of Professor Shippey's reply is combative, to be polite about it. In a footnote, responding to Simon's author bio that states he is "coming in peace"—a reference to his status as a Third Age expert posting on a Silmarillion website—Professor Shippey responds with something that is hard not to read as a threat: "Actually, I would quite like to meet him. I’m pretty good at dealing with aggression face-to-face, but even aged 80 I don’t seem to meet much of it, outside the safe space of the internet."
WHAT.
( Read more... )
I am not, as people reading here know, an academic, nor am I interested in becoming one. Since I am an independent scholar, friends sometimes ask, "Why don't you teach college?" and my answer amounts to, "LOL I LIKE TO EAT." But in reality, I have little interest in teaching at that level, namely because I am very good at teaching at the level I do (early adolescence) and believe I make the most difference there, when students are first beginning to deeply engage with history and literature. And the openness of my two areas of interest—Tolkien studies and fan studies—to independent scholarship means I don't have to join the ranks of academia to do the research I love. All this adds up to: I am not an academic.
So perhaps naively, my response to Simon was along the lines of, "Why would I care if you criticize the ideas of major Tolkien scholars??" I assumed that scholars of Professor Shippey's caliber can and have surely weathered criticisms of their ideas far worse than Simon was posing as part of the newsletter on a small Tolkien fan site. I honestly did not even believe they'd notice, as they have never noticed us before.
Simon has more experience with academia than me, as his question reveals. So that I cannot be charged with telling Professor Shippey what he really thinks, I will say that, in the wake of Simon's "Fawlty Towers," he appears to be pissed. Quite pissed. Simon's article was published Saturday afternoon; by Monday morning, Professor Shippey had posted a retort on Academia.edu.
Professor Shippey makes some fair points that I have taken on as the editor to the piece. Discrepancy of dates is likely due to the Works Cited being finished by me, not Simon. Perhaps, too, I should have pushed more on Simon's inferences about Professor Shippey's beliefs. However, the tone of Professor Shippey's reply is combative, to be polite about it. In a footnote, responding to Simon's author bio that states he is "coming in peace"—a reference to his status as a Third Age expert posting on a Silmarillion website—Professor Shippey responds with something that is hard not to read as a threat: "Actually, I would quite like to meet him. I’m pretty good at dealing with aggression face-to-face, but even aged 80 I don’t seem to meet much of it, outside the safe space of the internet."
WHAT.
( Read more... )
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