Friday, October 29, 2010

Activism Make Sense

In case you thought that it made no sense to struggle to preserve the Humanities from complete destruction because it isn't going to work anyways, here is some really good news. The Comparative Literature program at the University of Toronto has been saved from being disbanded:
The renowned Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto has been pulled back from the brink after an outcry from scholars around the world and the determined protests of students and faculty. The director of the centre said he has been assured that the school, which was slated to close at the end of this academic year, will survive. “Comp. Lit. is saved. The centre will stay open and we’re taking students for next year,” said director Neil ten Kortenaar. “I think it was the outcry from around the world. We had a lot of support from a lot of big-name people in academic circles.”
Everybody who took the time to sign the petition to save UofT's Centre for Comparative Literature should realize that our actions do matter. I know that it's easy to get discouraged in the face of constant and concerted efforts to destroy the academia, but we still have a lot of power to prevent such things from happening.

This is an encouragement for all of us to fight harder against the raging anti-intellectualism.

1 comment:

eric said...

I wish we had that support when the Comp Lit program in which I was a grad student was dissolved. It was around the same time that the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham (where Stuart Hall and other founders of the CS movement taught) was closed.