Of course, I've had it exactly backwards. I have been arguing that one needs a scholarly base in order to produce excellent scholarship. This much is true, as far as it goes. Without that formation, Bildung, or culture, it would be hard if not impossible to produce good scholarship.
But scholarship is really the path toward the ultimate goal, which is the Bildung itself. The writing of the work is, itself, the scholarly self-fashioning. The dissertation creates the scholar, not the other way around.
Yes and that is of course one of the ways in which I was always right although people did not believe me. "I am trying to become an expert." "No, dear, you are here to produce products." "Am I not also producing products?" "It is arrogant of you to have more goals than that."
ReplyDelete