Ann,
Yes, indeed, there are things to be done, and I wish you great success.
I don't know if I am following my heart. Truth is I was in therapy for
a good long while trying to figure out what to do!
Michael Yates
ann li wrote:
>
> I, too have mixed emotions about our status as "cultural workers" in
> academe, since I was a dean last year and now am teaching part-time,
> partially in the reserve army of distance learning educators, waiting for
> yet another opportunity in administration, hoping to make a difference,
> still thinking about going back to school in yet another field than my
> initial doctoral degree studies, because simply the times require that of
> me. And as many others in here might have considered: "why bother?".
>
> I also know that very real forces are at work and that we should never lose
> sight of that struggle. While I am disappointed at the "brownfields" of
> radical academe, I know that there are still things to be done and if I get
> the opportunity again I will try to support change in whatever capacity I
> find myself. But I truly understand the cynicism that on the one hand is
> "enlightened false consciousness" but on the other compels us to be better
> post-enlightment intellectuals. ( and if someone would like to interpret
> that as "Gramscian" or "organic", OK then ). As a pretty famous
> "post-marxian" economic geographer once told me when I told him I was going
> to leave his graduate program to pursue studies elsewhere, "you have to
> follow your heart".
>
> Ann Li
