File spoon-archives/french-feminism.archive/french-feminism_1996/96-06-15.140, message 117


From: Evelyn Mitchell <efm-AT-tummy.com>
Subject: Re: your mail
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 17:09:15 -0600 (CST)


>
>I think it is not insignificant than many U.S. scholars (like myself) 
>have largely settled with translations while many of the scholars from 
>the European continent and Canada read in the original.  Our culture lost 
>its cultivation of language skills I believe in the last 20 years so that 
>many of us have arrived at graduate school with minimal skills.  Because 
>we cannot use grad credit to take language courses and would therefore 
>have to pay for those courses, they play a minimal role in our 
>development.  I think it requires extra initiative in this country to be 
>of my generation and be reading in the originals.  I commend those with 
>it, but I think we're looking at a bigger symptomatic question in terms 
>of a transition in scholarship in this country.  
>Mary Keller, Syracuse U. 

I had no idea that graduate students in the US were not funded for
language classes. That must really make it tough to encourage students
to put the effort into learning other languages.

There was an article in the Times Higher Educational Supplement (UK)
which mourned the loss of Greek and Latin skills among classical
scholars, though they attributed the decline to the scarcity of
opportunity for Greek and Latin study prior to university-level education.

I am also surprised that a lack of language skills is not a significant
factor in the development of one's scholarly career.

Puzzled,
Evelyn Mitchell
efm-AT-tummy.com
http;//www.tummy.com


   

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