Well, I guess I can count on not getting a post at Madison anytime soon!

All of this has been blown a tad out of proportion. My comment on Biddy Martin was, after all, a blog post – 231 words, 71 of which were Biddy’s – and not an “online news article” as the Dems’ press release says. The only “news” was naming a few oeuvres from Prof Martin’s scholarly corpus, which may not have gotten the public attention it probably deserves in Wisconsin.

I suppose calling Prof Martin “an obscure, self-indulged, and theory-laden scholar” sounds a bit harsh, but I disagree with the Dems that it is a “personal attack.” Let’s take it term by term, shall we? Martin is a professor of German Studies and Women’s Studies; her work is about feminists in Germany, and lesbians everywhere. That is, impartially put, “obscure”; just as obscure in many ways as my own recent work on the history of development projects in colonial Africa. Her latest — and only her second — publication is heavily autobiographical. She also professes that universities are useful because they make the scales of injustice and bigotry so typical of the outside world fall from their students’ eyes. As a scholar, she is “self-indulged.” And, finally, the very titles of Prof Martin’s work are visibly ripe with theory; she is an academic of “identity” and finds a home in volumes like Destabilizing Theory, and special double-issues of Diacritics. She is, in a word, “theory-laden.” Anyways, don’t take my word for it. Her full body of work is listed on her CV, beginning at page 5 (pdf).

The question is whether Biddy Martin the scholar necessarily impairs Biddy Martin the chancellor? Well, certainly I don’t expect Women’s Studies at Madison to be taking any hits. But in the larger scheme of things, it’s hard to say. As I’m sure Prof Martin knows from her Cornell experience, the work of a good state-school chancellor is to balance firmly on both the professoriate (she’s got that, I’m sure) and higher learning’s financiers in the state legislature. I guess we’ll wait and see about that latter part.