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I am posting this as a benchmark, not because I think I'm playing very well yet.  The idea would be post a video every month for a ye...

Monday, October 25, 2021

How I can go against my own preferences

 For example: a dissertation that included favorable chapters on Luis García Montero, a poet I have not supported at all. But on the dissertation that issue never came up. 

Approaches that aren't particularly nuanced. My role is to have the student present a strong thesis that is supported, even if I would prefer more nuanced approaches. 

I offered to read someone's book proposal, someone I know on facebook and the field, but not even a close friend. I didn't really agree with this person's intellectual agenda in some ways, but I helped him to shape his proposal so that a publisher might be interested. His book was accepted. 

A student who actually won the dissertation prize here at KU.  Working on indigenous poetry--but in translation--something that I am strongly against.  I just had to get over my own scruples. The student was otherwise brilliant. Just, you can't do a dissertation on translations without knowing the texts in the original. But I probably did the right thing here.  

Are there preferences I have that I would never go against? Yes. Something that was not a mere aesthetic preference, but matter of deeper principle.  


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