I actually really enjoyed skimming through this article on fern illustrations. It's got stuff on history, technology, and plant science all told in a compelling story.
Anyway, re: various discussions we had when you were here, I think we (and the rest of academia) should just acknowledge that all knowledge creation has value, whether or not we personally find it interesting.
I hope the author of this article doesn't have google alerts set up to find commentary on his work.
Well, that judgments of the value of knowledge should be independent of whether or not we find that knowledge personally interesting seems indisputable. The fact that such an issue can even be raised is a telltale sign of our overwhelmingly self-obsessed cultural moment. However, I’m not willing to say all knowledge creation has value. Even if we overlook the possibility that some discoveries might not outweigh the ethical costs, and that the question of who gets to determine what counts as “knowledge” often reveals that many modes of inquiry continue patterns of domination we should find appalling--objections that by now should be old-hat--we might still question whether all knowledge is created equal and should be valued equally. We might even wonder if knowledge-creation should be the business of all branches of the academy, or if some disciplines haven’t diminished their own potential worth by attempting to follow a knowledge-centered model of practice based on an idealized version of what scientists do. I would argue that this is in fact what happened in literary studies, and that we in these disciplines would be far better served by giving less attention to knowledge-creation and more attention to engaging the world, as our objects of study do (or should do).
And when you’re writing about drawings of plants, there’s no such thing as bad press. This blog link increased readership by one at least.
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I actually really enjoyed skimming through this article on fern illustrations. It's got stuff on history, technology, and plant science all told in a compelling story.
Anyway, re: various discussions we had when you were here, I think we (and the rest of academia) should just acknowledge that all knowledge creation has value, whether or not we personally find it interesting.
I hope the author of this article doesn't have google alerts set up to find commentary on his work.
Well, that judgments of the value of knowledge should be independent of whether or not we find that knowledge personally interesting seems indisputable. The fact that such an issue can even be raised is a telltale sign of our overwhelmingly self-obsessed cultural moment. However, I’m not willing to say all knowledge creation has value. Even if we overlook the possibility that some discoveries might not outweigh the ethical costs, and that the question of who gets to determine what counts as “knowledge” often reveals that many modes of inquiry continue patterns of domination we should find appalling--objections that by now should be old-hat--we might still question whether all knowledge is created equal and should be valued equally. We might even wonder if knowledge-creation should be the business of all branches of the academy, or if some disciplines haven’t diminished their own potential worth by attempting to follow a knowledge-centered model of practice based on an idealized version of what scientists do. I would argue that this is in fact what happened in literary studies, and that we in these disciplines would be far better served by giving less attention to knowledge-creation and more attention to engaging the world, as our objects of study do (or should do).
And when you’re writing about drawings of plants, there’s no such thing as bad press. This blog link increased readership by one at least.
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