UPDATE: It appears that, since this morning, Prof. Doyle has decided to make her website "private." That's a shame because, as I note in the update, below, I do like to link to those whose writings I criticize so that readers can assess matters for themselves. (ADDENDUM 5:30 pm CST: A reader sent the cached version of the original, which does not include her temper tantrum after I linked to her, but does include her original commentary on the Butler letter.)
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It's a big internet, and there was bound to be someone in "theory"-land who would actually try to defend the indefensible: enter Jennifer Doyle [link now private[, English professor at UC Riverside, whose blog is aptly titled "trouble thinking." She does, indeed, seem to have some trouble with that particular cognitive activity, but read it for yourself. I'll just share e-mailed comments from a PhD student in literature, who sent me the link to Doyle's display:
This has been one of the more profoundly disillusioning experiences I've had with the academy. How can these people spend dozens of years learning how to think, and still make statements like these without a shred of embarrassment?
"The blog that published this letter is not trustworthy. It’s trollish."
Is that a claim that you tampered with the letter? If not, what bearing could it possibly have?
"Publishing that document is hurtful. That letter is a miserable crisis document."
30 years reading Foucault and their argument is: it is 'hurtful' to drag the concealed workings of power into light? In what conceivable way is 'That letter was not intended for publication' a moral defense when the letter was intended for submission? That's the whole point! And the notion that 'crisis document' provides some sort of moral pass is beneath contempt. It's a letter written, read, signed, and circulated by full professors in their offices, not the transcription of a statement given to police with no lawyer present.
The irony about Doyle's childish smear of my exposing these antics to daylight is that the CHE article had already confirmed that my blog was, in fact, wholly trustworthy: that was the real letter Butler et al. sent out soliciting signatures. There's no doubt at this point.
UPDATE: In light of Doyle's new childish outburst in the wake of my linking to her defense of Butler, I sent her the following e-mail with the subject line, "You're having trouble with accuracy."
Dear Prof. Doyle:
My blog is not “scandal-mongering”: try reading it. It is about the philosophy profession, about the academy more generally, about issues in the profession (including sexual harassment), about academic freedom, and about actual left-wing critique of contemporary politics and society. My blog is also not “untrustworthy”: the letter I posted, and that you’re trying to make excuses for, is the actual letter Judith Butler wrote and she and others sent out to hundreds of faculty soliciting signatures. Stop trying to smear me, and argue like an adult. Readers are coming to your website to see if my representation of your intervention is fair or not: unlike you, in the interests of accuracy, I link to the object of the criticism. You should try doing the same.
Best wishes,
Brian Leiter
Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence
Director, Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values
University of Chicago
1111 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Phone: (773) 702-0953
Fax: (773) 702-0730
ANOTHER: Doyle has quite a reputation among faculty at UC Riverside, I may yet do a separate post on that. One colleague (not a philosopher) writes that she suffers from "a moralism gone-awry. She has that drive-to-execute that we sometimes see in certain ideologues....I find Doyle very limited and her behavior all-too-predictable." I've dealt with cyber-stalkers before, we'll see if Doyle turns into a full-fledged one.
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