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comment by galen
galen  ·  2114 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: June 13, 2018

Hard to explain.

Discussing texts, historical currents, writing styles--really picking them apart, and working together to produce a better understanding--with people who also really care: that's fun for me. Spending two hours picking apart Heiner Müllers Hamletmaschine, a text of about 10 pages, then going home to write about it is super exciting. Doing the thing because it's interesting, not because it's classically "productive" :)





lil  ·  2113 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Call me crazy, but I just found a pdf of Hamletmaschine and printed it. If I need help understanding it, I'll let you know.

galen  ·  2113 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Oh man lil, there's so much there. Wonderful text. Let me know when you finish :)

user-inactivated  ·  2114 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I can get behind that. Can't you get that kind of attitude in the US? Is that why you don't want to move?

galen  ·  2114 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Academia in the US is dying-- especially the humanities. Not to mention, as a language professor in the US, you have to spend about 40% of your time teaching beginning language classes to people who are only there to fulfil a requirement. Here, those classes are in Gymnasium (high school, sort of). That means professors teach the actual intellectual parts.

Also America is generally suffocating :P

user-inactivated  ·  2114 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Interesting. I've never met anyone my generation with joy for academic work. Thank you for sharing.

galen  ·  2113 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, I hadn't either. That's why I want to stay here :)