Recently, while at a cultural studies academic conference, I walked past a group of striking hotel workers seeking better working conditions. The strike was three blocks from the building where the conference was being held. The conference sessions and panels concerned subjects of potential usefulness to political activism in their theorization and analysis of contemporary culture and social conditions, but there was such a stark separation between the conference and the protestors. Academics at a conference accessible only through paid registration and affiliation in the membership association. Workers on strike three blocks away. For me, the gap between academic scholarship and the picket lines of political activism was as evident as ever.
The British social historian E. P. Thompson warned against this divide. He understood the problems that come with an academia encased in commercial institutions and a scholarly community obsessed with esoteric social theory divorced from its political utility. He pursued work addressing what he saw as the political crises of his times, like calling for a more humanist socialism and addressing the threat of nuclear proliferation. His scholarly work stands out from his academic contemporaries in his consistent devotion to historical research that could aid in real political activism. His words on the importance of social history and the need for theory to be politically useful remain as important today as they did during his lifetime. In a time where political crises erupt on all corners of the world, Thompson’s words and warnings deserve to be revisited. full: http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/why_e.p._thompson_matters_theory_academia_and_political_activism _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
