Ana Dinescu, writing from Berlin, Germany.

Any disappointment starts with a confession. I grew up infused with the idea that acquiring higher education is the most important professional aim in life. As a consequence, it is highly recommended that one share the company of people who have acquired university studies because through a dialogue with such persons, you grow up as an intellectual individual. Intellectuals always meet to discuss ideas and thoughts on how to change the world for good, don’t they?

However, I was saved from too much naivety by reality. As part of my various professional and academic assignments, I had the occasion to read and listen to grotesque elaborations uttered by people with high qualifications. From many points of view, it is better to see the reality as it is than to live in delusion. But this acknowledgment of fact does not have anything to do with accepting this reality.

And I go further into the facts. Many of the news articles from the academic realm I have read in the last two months were related to the facts that, according to my cloudy brain, do not have anything to do with the honesty and respectability of academic activity and way of thinking in general. For example, at the beginning of March, the famous Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government hosted# a conference where the conclusion of many of the speakers was the irrelevance of the state of Israel. The beginning of this year marked almost one year since the methodical slaughtering started in Syria. However, one of the most aired joint public activities developed in the last years by academics and professors from the Ivy League universities was the preparation for the so-called ‘Israel Apartheid Week’. At this point, I have not heard of any delimitation from such actions by the European academic counterparts.

Knowledge is beautiful and the academic dialogue bringing together people sharing opposite views is wonderful, but you should accept the right of the other party to express and to exist. We do not carry absolute truths and we should consider this a gift, not a weapon of hate.

Indifference kills. It did in WWII Germany where intellectuals did not protest the expelling of their fellow Jews from academia, and later on, when their neighbors were transported to the gas chambers. Times changed, but some ideas and patterns of behavior did not change dramatically. It might be a matter of bad education.

The ending of this short story can be either pessimistic or optimistic. When you do not have too many expectations, you avoid being disappointed. There are always good and bad lessons learned, as is the case of any historical episode. We must always wish that people do have the chance to change for good, especially if they assume they belong to the category of intellectuals. I still cannot believe that the intellectual believing in the values of knowledge and tolerance can accept the idea of a boycott.

This post was also published in Inside Higher Ed

Ana Dinescu, writing from Berlin, Germany

For more than one year, almost every two months, I enjoy writing a book review. Most of the books I am interested in cover the main issues I am focused on in my daily lectures; there are books on political science, history of Central and Eastern Europe, foreign affairs and identity, ethnic minorities and tolerance.

It usually takes me a maximum of two weeks to read a book, during which I take my notes, and look eventually for further documentation and build my critical background. Unless it is a very difficult book, in a maximum of three or four hours I am done with the final writing: the presentation of the subject, the introduction of the details about the author(s) and the quality of the writing, the main thesis and the critical considerations. Also, at the end of my contribution, I should not forget to mention my personal recommendation about the opportunity to read or not read that particular book.

From the point of view of academic relevance, I am convinced that articles may be more important for my CV than my short notes about the books I enjoy reading. Not too many people read what other people think about books, preferring instead to read them themselves and make their own opinions. The recommendations may work but, with some particular exceptions outlined in dedicated publications, such as the New York Review of Books, who really remembers the author of a book review? Even the name is usually written in small letters.

An article will be preferred because it may introduce original ideas that can induce change in the way we look at things. And, from this point of view, some may ask: What can you change, for instance, with a book review? Unless the book is very badly written or plants the seeds of a revolution in the domain, you cannot change too much with a story about other people’s words. You had better start writing your own book. Well, from this point of view, writing book reviews may be a very helpful exercise in practicing your book writing skills.

But, despite all these logical considerations, I should reinforce my initial statement: I fully enjoy writing book reviews. It might be a sign of mental laziness, as obviously it is easier to read and write about what you are reading than to build an argument for a fully original article and carefully document a certain issue. To write an article, I need a longer amount of time for the documentation and actual writing. After the submission, I also must wait for the decision of the peer review process and sometimes, I need to make new and radical changes before the final publication is approved.

What I really enjoy when I am writing a book review is the independence of my words: I am alone with my point of view and able to freely express my opinions.

The peer review approach is equally critical in the final decision regarding the publication opportunity of a book review, but until now, the feed-back I have received addressed mostly some considerations of style instead of requests for radical reevaluations of my article. Openly speaking, at least once I considered that the opinions expressed at the end of the peer-review process disregarded my basic right of articulating my point of view. Right or good, as long as it is exposed in a coherent and logical way, the opinion is yours and you should be free to assume the full risk of expressing it.

I do not want to insist too much, but this may be one of the reasons I love writing book reviews. What are we, as academics and humans in general, without the freedom to express our points of view? Maybe I will focus the next months on writing a new book as well. My words need to find their way somehow.

Ana Dinescu, writing from Berlin, Germany.

Is there life after the Ph.D.?

In the last ten months, I started a long process of getting used to the idea that my Ph.D. work is over. I am (finally) done and I can do nothing more – except to start another Ph.D. on a different topic, maybe. There is no sadness, no regrets, not even the feeling of fighting an addiction; but there is one question repeated over and over again: “Now, that your Ph.D. is done, what will you do next?”

The first step, and easiest to write about, is to create a normal life! Does this mean that until now my life wasn’t normal? For almost four years my Ph.D. discretely followed me in my very busy professional life, through various relocations from one continent to another and through personal challenges. The same Ph.D. took full advantage of my sleep disorder and filled my late evening hours with words and books. For the sake of the Ph.D., I worked extra to get more money to pay for my books on Amazon.com and for my expenses to participate in various international conferences. Honestly, the academic activity was maybe the only “normal” part of my life.  When entrenched in the busy and crazy daily world, I stole some quiet time for doing serious writing and research. I deeply cherished these moments.

For two months after my defense, I didn’t want to hear at all about my thesis. I had had enough. For weeks, I intensively focused on literature and travel writing. Then suddenly, in the middle of the summer, I decided to edit the manuscript of my thesis and prepare for the moment I would hand it to an editorial house for publishing a book from it. Or maybe it will make two books and a couple of articles, I am still considering the various options. Through the editing process, I got closer again to my topics, reconsidered some interpretations and bibliographic references, and in some respects, I reconnected sentimentally with my thesis.

In this way, I was able to understand my academic past while trying to think differently about my academic future, by trying to further explore new academic areas. I promised myself that I would further develop many of the aspects addressed in my thesis and continue to keep a careful eye on the issues related to my area of study:  intellectuals and politics and issues of ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe.

The most important thing is that I discovered how I can keep myself awake and interested in an academic career, more than ever before. At the end of the day, the post-Ph.D. life may spark an interesting episode in my professional life.

This post was also published in Inside Higher Ed.

Ana Dinescu, writing from Berlin, Germany

Women in the media. The latest news for the academic audience.

News about women always represents a big part of the daily media bombardment that an academic should not avoid. I will not try to address (yet) the question why, when browsing the media, it is most likely that you will find so much yellow journalism and why such situations are so frequent. For somebody interested in the ways in which daily information reflects on short, medium and long-term societal changes, observing the mainstream media is very important for an academic, although time consuming and stealing important time from the library.

Today, I wanted to have a different lecture about the news, looking for positive news about women. Thus, I searched “women in politics” through Google news.

My results were:

• An interesting feature report about Busha Gohar1, a Pakistani MP, a secular woman educated in the US representing the Taliban-dominated area of Khyber-Pakhtun Khwa. Despite the high risks – including to her personal life – she is fighting for women’s right to education, equal rights and dignity.
• In the male-driven political life of Russia, for the first time in history a woman – Valentina Matviyenko – was elected speaker of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian Parliament2. An active politician from an early age, enjoying an important political support from both prime minister Vladimir Putin – for the position of governor of St. Petersburg – and the president Dmitry Medvedev – for the speaker competition – she could mark a change in the daily politics from Moscow, by supporting other well-educated and skilled women to play a wider role in Russian life.
• In Cameroon3, the United Nations Development Programme is encouraging women to play a more active role in the ongoing electoral process. Women need to take a bigger involvement in winning their rights, given the high level of violence against women, the practice of Female Genital Mutilation and the frequency of cases when 12-year old girls are forced to get married4.
• The Western media continue to air the much praised announcement made September 25, 2011 by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia that the women will be allow to vote, after a new law and specific policies will be drafted5. On the other hand, women still can’t work or leave the country without the approval of a male relative and can’t drive to exert their right to vote.
• In Israel, a couple of days before the New Year, the former journalist Shelly Yachimovich6, was elected the president of the Labor Party, the first chairwoman of this political party since the legendary Golda Meir, in a country used to the active presence of women in politics. For the first time in the history of Israel, two major political parties are led by woman, Yachimovich main competitor being Kadima’s Tzipi Livni.

In almost half an hour, I’ve read a couple of interesting news stories from all over the world. In some cases, women are far away from full political recognition, in others they simply should define their roles and create their own leadership. Everywhere, there is always something more to be done, not necessarily in opposition to something or somebody, but as an effort to send a clear identity message.

The academic relevance of such information? Why not try to involve the intellectuals more actively in relevant and serious debates about these issues, in a time when eyes are focused on hot geopolitical potatoes. Long-term involvement of women in higher education in challenging the current political trends should be a long term commitment.

1 http://www.rferl.org/content/pakistan_politicas_as_unusual_for_a_woman_a…,
retrieved October 4, 2011
2 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/politics/8803595/Valentin…,
retrieved October 4, 2011
3 http://www.crtv.cm/cont/nouvelles/nouvelles_sola_fr.php?idField=10151&ta…,
retrieved October 4, 2011

4 http://www.afrol.com/Categories/Women/profiles/cameroon_women.htm, retrieved October 4, 2011

5 http://www.afrol.com/Categories/Women/profiles/cameroon_women.htm, retrieved October 4, 2011

6 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4126036,00.html, retrieved October 4, 2011

This post was also published at Inside Higher Ed

Ana Dinescu, writing from Berlin, Germany.

There will never be enough words to write about libraries and my very personal encounters with their books. Beyond the family influence, the happy accidental encounters, and various events from my life; libraries are and will always be the main constant in my professional and human achievements (because I don’t see how one could develop in the absence of the other).

In my first years of literate life – in Ceausescu’s communist Romania – I had my huge home library: a large number of books in four or five languages, old and new, some hidden from visitors’ eyes because they were considered forbidden and whose possession was considered a risk to freedom (or at least so we’ve been told). For a long time, it was difficult to understand the fact that there could be houses without at least one room stuffed with various kinds of books. To compensate my collection, I registered at the local school library, which was not extremely rich, but held books that I didn’t have at home.

I was happy enough to grow up as a teenager in a country discovering – and sometimes reinventing – the democratic exercise. Access to the foreign public libraries was no longer restricted and I followed my mother’s advice to register first and foremost at the French Institute and the British Council. The unexpected box filled with reading pleasures – mostly literature, arts and philosophy – was opened for me then through the generous shelves of foreign books. I wanted to read them all and in my weekly ritual I introduced at least one day of library hopping when I hurried to exchange them. A local or school library supplied the necessary books in my mother tongue.

During my university years, I found out that the reading rooms could be a pleasant refuge for almost everything. Later, as my professional life was developing and my personal time was diminishing, I continued to carry with me the access cards for a minimum of two libraries and included in my – clearly – crazy schedule a marathon from one library to another at least every two weeks.

The library – as an institution in itself – was and will always be an imperishable part of my life, wherever I live and whatever I do. Finding the right place with the right books is the main element I take into consideration when moving from one country to another, from one town to another. In this way, I keep not only the visual memories of the places, but also the intellectual memories of the books continuing to change my life.

Ana Dinescu, writing from Berlin, Germany

For some German politicians, this summer is bringing not only matters of meditation on preparing for the coming elections in September, or the need to address the home and foreign agenda, but also serious challenges for their careers. After the big scandal around the accusation of plagiarism against Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the then minister of Defense and a rising star of the German politics; other politicians, many representatives of the ‘’new generation,’’ are going through comparably embarrassing days.

Silvana Koch-Mehrin, a leading name of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), author and vice-president of the European Parliament, was found guilty of plagiarism following an investigation by the University of Heidelberg. Koch-Mehrin held a Ph.D. in history coordinated by the then dean of the University. Although she recognized that her Ph.D. thesis “is not a masterpiece” she is more likely willing to appeal the decision of a special committee that identified in her paper sections taken from 30 other publications, two thirds of them not referred as such in the bibliography. The irony of fate: one day after the verdict, she was promoted into the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) of the European Parliament, but resigned following a public protest of the Alliance of German Scientific Organizations (Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen – AdW). Members of the AdW are, among others, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, German Academic Exchange Service, Max Planck Society, and the German Research Foundation. She retired from all her academic and professional positions, but continues to keep her mandate in the European Parliament.

Koch-Mehrin’s colleague Jorgo Chatzimarkakis is in a similar situation. At his request, the University of Bonn identified more than 50% plagiarism in his Ph.D. thesis dealing with informational globalism and e-commerce. With a career in diplomacy and a visiting research fellowship at the University of Oxford under the auspices of Ralf Dahrendorf; Chatzimarkakis is also member of the European Parliament and is likely to continue his mandate.

And if this is not enough: Berndt Althusmann, Lower Saxony’s Minister of Cultural Affairs, and president of the standing conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs in Germany’s state governments – a body responsible also for policies in the area of higher education – quoted incorrectly several sources in his dissertation.

This year also brought bad news from the Christian Democrat MP Matthias Christoph Pröfrock who lost his doctorate by the University of Tübingen, but he refused to give up his position in the legislature.

Several cases yielded the same verdict and almost the same attitudes. With the exception of zu Guttenberg, the other politicians with problematic Ph.D.s decided to continue their political activities and careers. Academic status, in a country where status and professional qualifications matter so much, was once a key to political success. Now, some will continue their political careers as politicians and nothing other than politicians. Without being impressed by the political CVs of their subjects of their investigations, the academic commissions reevaluated the work and took away the titles conferred by the same universities. By their decisions, the academic institutions requested to the questionable academics to abstain from using as part of their political branding the symbolic capital acquired in and through the academy. This could be a warning and a guarantee that the integrity of academic institutions will be maintained on medium term, despite the (probably human) failures of the primary evaluation of the Ph.D. works. A politician without academic records could expect one day a return to the main political stage if his or her political activities reach certain levels of performance (we are talking now about efficiency, not ethics). Such a comeback for a university failing to conform to the highest levels of integrity is a matter of centuries.

To be continued.

Sources:

http://uvenus.org/2011/03/10/our-wise-politicians/

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15189978,00.html, retrieved 19 July 2011

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/14/plagiarism-row-jorgo-chatzimarkakis-germany, retrieved 19 July 2011

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/fdp-plagiatsvorwuerfe-gegen-chatzimarkakis-drei-zitiertechniken-viele-fragezeichen-1.1097780, retrieved 19 July 2011

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2011071415525384

Ana Dinescu, writing from Berlin, Germany

Usually, I avoid reading and writing about star books as much as possible. As in the case of various pop stars, general and particular opinions are inevitably influenced by the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ aired in the media, the result of ingenious PR campaigns aimed to sell. ‘Successful’ books are often evaluated in terms of sales reports and although I could appreciate a smart communication strategy aimed to increase the income of both the publisher’s house and the author, I prefer to keep myself away from the trends. At the end of the day, a valuable book could stand the test of time, couldn’t it?

But in this case (see footnote below), I prefer to make an exception, given my interest for the history of elites and genesis of intellectuals. Six months after finishing my PhD thesis on intellectuals in Central Europe, I wanted to force myself into a kind of coming back to the world of the history of ideas.

Instead of a detached intellectual introspection, from the first pages of starting Chua’s book, my indignation increased, stirring old memories about situations still fresh in my mind. I was thinking about a former colleague of mine from primary school whose parents were obsessed with (only) ‘A’ grades. Indeed, she always had ‘A’ grades, but I have never heard anything about this person in the last 20 years. Probably, the parents were the only ones to understand the success of such an ‘educational strategy’.

More recently, I remember the busy mothers of classmates of my daughter, explaining how exhausted they were after accompanying their children to at least two extra-classes each day. And that schedule was religiously followed for years, for all seven days of the week. As in Chua’s case, failure of any kind was considered a disaster, but mostly from their personal point of view. All those mothers were always talking proudly about their efforts to create a safe intellectual haven for the family, their sacrifices to split between jobs and family, their hopes for their children.

Still back in the box with memories, I can remember my own schedule in my first years of school: some piano lessons for a while, foreign languages always, unsuccessful attempts to introduce sports into my schedule, and various long lists of lectures, some of them very classical and not attractive at all. I always felt happy to be able to make my own choices out of a long list of opportunities. I never felt forced to do so for some ideological purposes and the love for learning was more important than being forced to learn for various peripheral and selfish reasons.

What is the motivation of the ‘tiger mother’ (or tiger parent) for the impossible program administered to her daughters – and her pride in it? An imaginary ‘Chinese way’ which excludes failure and a life aimed to enjoy the happiness of the moment. What about enjoying the happiness of shared knowledge, the modesty of knowing that we’ll never be able to acquire full knowledge, and the wisdom of understanding the lessons of our failures?

The propaganda publications in the communist Romania of the ‘80s were publishing largely images of poor people on the streets of New York as an example of what you can expect if you want freedom instead of the secure life of starvation in the happy ‘East.’ In 1935, the Soviet miner Aleksei Stakhanov mined 102 tons of coal in less than 6 hours – more than 12 times his quota. Soon, the Soviet media reported various competitions breaking this impressive record. Of course, most (if not all) of the reports were nothing more than propaganda. This ‘West’ might be superficial or oriented towards a less noble aim such as happiness, but at least you have more chances to learn about respect towards freedom and individual integrity and the freedom of choice.

We don’t have to learn for the sake of the golden medal, but because we should understand that we need education for being more than lions, tigers or other members of the bestiary, but for living as human beings. Otherwise, we confuse children with puppies and we try to admonish them according to the same ‘educational methods’.

Berlin, Germany

Ana Dinescu is a regular contributor to University of Venus and a PhD candidate in history at the Faculty of History, University of Bucharest, with a background in Political Science. She has been a journalist for ten years for Romanian daily newspapers and is currently a communications consultant, living in Berlin.

1 http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Hymn-Tiger-Mother-Chua/dp/1594202842