Comments on: "Laughing at the disabled"

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:01:20 +0000

Update: I've written a post on the latest development in this affair, the suspension of Hookham and MacLennan for six months without pay, which I think is a completely over the top reaction, and says something very dodgy about QUT. I still hold to my original criticism of the two academics, but the chilling effect of this over-reaction on freedom of speech is deeply worrying.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 02:00:44 +0000

Yes, indeed. The suspension of the two academics without pay for six months seems a totally disproportionate (if hardly unsurprising) action by QUT.

By: steve

steve — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:26:02 +0000

QUT seems to have forgotten that there are more general issues surrounding this case than the narrow interpretation and in-house view that they have applied in this case.

By: Andrew Bartlett

Andrew Bartlett — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 04:08:30 +0000

Interesting post-script to this story, with the two academics in question being suspended without pay for 6 months as a consequence. A totally over the top response in my view, however harsh their original public criticism was.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 05 May 2007 14:38:09 +0000

Or, alternatively, if QUT hadn't junked the teaching of social science, people might learn not to generalise from anecdotal evidence about "Gen Z".

By: Luka S

Luka S — Sat, 05 May 2007 10:39:43 +0000

There seems to be a generation gap developing between many of the writers of the above comments (presumably postgraduates and/or graduates), and undergraduate students. In the last couple of days, at QUT in the Creative Industries Faculty, large numbers of MacLennan’s undergraduate students have contribtued to online Forums supporting MacLennan’s stand. I’m told that they’re even holding a support rally this coming Tuesday on one of QUT’s campuses (on the Kelvin Grove campus probably). Seems that what amounted to a “farewell email” sent by MacLennan to students has cause a big stir amongs the undergraduates. I’ve actually seen some copies of their posts, and they’re agreeing with MacLennan’s arguments as they’ve appeared in the media. What I find interesting about this as one of those postgrad researchers myself, is that it would appear Generation Z is in rebelling against postmodernism. I’ve heard and read anecdotal stories about how this seems to be the case in many Nth American college classrooms (interestingly, on many so-called liberal campuses), and maybe this is also the case in Australia, although I’d hestitate to call QUT a liberal university.

I’d imagine the undergraduates are having to make some hard decisions here: while a lot of them may have heard lectures from MacLennan, many of them would have had Michael Noonan as their tutor, at least in some subject. Yet they’re coming down on MacLennan’s side.

I’ve heard a lot said about MacLennan’s activisim during the Joh Years, and he’s survived it all. So he’s a seasoned campaigner who, it would seem, knows which way the wind is blowing. In a power tussle between MacLennan and McKee, I’d bet I know what side the undergrads would take.

And, I dare say, that at QUT and other universities, Vice-Chancellors and Academic Boards, are beginning to pick up on this change in thiniing amongst Gen Z as well — at least in part. QUT’s Vice-Chancellor, Peter Coaldrake, has said on the press that he’s closing down QUT’s Humanities school because he thinkgs that ‘the creative industries’ are the ‘new humanities’.

I’ll have to leave it there, because Spider-Man 2 has just begun on free-to-air TV, and I happen to be a fan of the movie.

By: John Greenfield

John Greenfield — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 23:20:03 +0000

Somehow I doubt we would have seen a thread like this had the Ph.D student been on the “right” side of the Leftist pomo vs. realist Culture War.

By: Tyro Rex

Tyro Rex — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:47:29 +0000

I would like to point out that the main article in the higher ed section, as well as attacking this poor PhD candidate in public, was basically pushing the same old tired reactionary agenda.

In the view of these two gossipy QUT luvvies having their after-work-drinkies bitch-session, in the full glare of the public gaze, the Academy’s one and only True Purpose is educating the Ignorant Masses about the Glories of the Canon such that they can be Uplifted from their Humdrum and Dreary Existence. Because you know, otherwise the aforementioned Masses are only interested in the Footy Tips Competition, Reality Television, or Britney Spears’ Drug-Induced Breakdown, or whatever it is the Great Unwashed actually do for entertainment nowadays.

Morality plays and floggings for the recalcitrant ingrates at 11.

By: Adam Gall

Adam Gall — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:45:47 +0000

So it’s “exterminate all the brutes” then, Jack?

Can anybody actually answer that kind of position constructively?

By: david tiley

david tiley — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 13:15:02 +0000

Interesting point from Jack. I was mentally replying by saying that he is but a lowly fee-paying student in the first year of his program – but it turns out he is also a lecturer in the same department so is a bit more robust than I had thought at first.

But he is still surely entitled to stand in front of the assembled academics of his department and find out – in Jack’s vigorous debate – if he is being a dill or not without turning up in a national newspaper as an object of censorious mouth-pursing.

Ironically for senior academics claiming to attack a subjectivist and relative approach to ideas, the debate turns on an interpretation of the footage, on which we have no direct evidence.

Except that a disabiity support group is not offended. And they don’t have such an evident axe to grind.

I wonder if Noonan would win a libel case?

——

Interesting too that he manages to be a fairly vigorous filmmaker with many no/lo or PFTC supported films to his credit. I wonder if that creates tension.