German Joys

An Embarassing Problem

Shit, what's the fine for 13,087 days? And where am I going to get all those Deutschmarks? And what do I do about the fact that they tore down the circulation desk and replaced it by a modern-art museum (g)?

I think I need a lawyer.

Quote of the Day: Mephistopheles on Professors

Many visitors to German universities puzzle at the tendency of many professors to 'lecture' by reading from their most recent textbook in a flat monotone, and ask themselves: 'Whoever thought this was the way to teach?'

The answer: Mephistopheles -- who else? Jaroslav Pelikan's prose translation of a passage (g) in Faust in which the demon explains the facts of life to a prospective student:

For ... five hours a day, the student should be prepared to listen to the professor, in accordance with the pedagogical method of the universities, "in such a way that afterwards you will be able to recognize better that he is not saying anything except what is already in the book. But you must be writing it down, as thought the Holy Spirit himself were dictating it to you!"

Norton Critical Edition of Faust, p. 590.

Commencement: Bats & Dementia

Heidelbergerin has some observations on German commencement ceremonies:  

Graduates sat in the front few rows, and each got to invite three people to come see them go up for their diploma. There wasn't any checking of tickets or anything, though. The graduates just dressed nicely - no funny robes or hats. There was one Scottish guy in a kilt. The program opened with some Beethoven on a piano. Nobody processed in, everybody was already just sitting there. Next, a guy with a cool bow tie and hat - the only guy who had any remotely academic costume going on - welcomed everybody, presented something to a couple of the graduates (frankly, I didn't find this part important enough to bother trying to translate it in my head), and introduced the main speaker.

We thought the speaker would say something relevant to the occasion of graduating, receiving a higher degree, education these days, the philosophy of the practice of and research in medicine, or something. But, the talk was actually about dementia. Not that dementia is not an interesting topic, but I totally failed to see how it fit with graduation. The speaker was totally full of himself, but it was at least amusing to watch him up there making animated academic-looking gestures, the likes of which you normally only see in comedy, quoting Latin and English, and being generally dramatic.

Halfway through his incredibly long speech, unfortunately a woman in the audience actually had a seizure and her friend called for a doctor. I think 3/4 of the room stood up. We were also entertained by some cute little bat that found its way into the auditorium and then just couldn't get out again.

After the speech, there was another piano piece, followed by an opera selection from The Marriage of Figaro. Again: huh? The singer and pianist were great, but the relevance of all this was still failing me. Then the graduates received their degrees. First the summa cum laude graduates were called up individually and received diplomas placed inside black folders. Then the rest of the graduates were called up four at a time and received their diplomas stuck inside a plastic sleeve with binder holes. Even though they were called up alphabetically, no advance effort had been made to seat the graduates in any sort of order, so they had to clamber over each other to get up to the front when called. There had also been no effort made to ask the graduates how their names were pronounced, so the MC had to stumble through them on his own, and it wasn't pretty. After this, yet another irrelevant opera selection, then we got to have some champagne and pretzels in the lobby (best part!!!). In all it took two hours.

I love the bat. A delightful detail. The "commencement speaker" was almost certainly a recently-appointed professor giving his Antrittsvorlesung, or inaugural lecture. These generally don't have anything to do with graduation; they relate to whatever the professor's research interests are. (Full disclosure: I'll be giving one of these (g) in about two weeks myself). To an American used to American-style graduation ceremonies, it will probably seem a bit off-putting to have to sit through a lecture on some topic that may be of very limited interest. Certainly nothing like the touchy-feely, brimful-with-hope commencement addresses typical in the U.S.

Signs of my creeping Europeanization appear in my reaction to the commencement address. Sure, the shriveled remnants of the American in me say "Goshdangit! Isn't it all supposed to be about the students? Isn't it their Special Day? Shouldn't they receive congratulations and perhaps some good advice for the road?" The American thinks there's something chillingly impersonal -- and perhaps even sinister -- about hundreds of people being forced to listen to a speech on a topic that is likely only to interest a few.

Then the European retorts: "Ach! You narcissistic Americans! First you shamelessly coddle your college students, inflating their already-healthy sense of self-regard and solipsism. Then, when they finally have to leave college, you shower them with yet more praise, giving them a big pat on the back for having finished college and, at least at the better colleges, warning them about all the Responsibility they will have to shoulder in their important new careers.

But in Europe, young people go to college not to feel better about themselves, but to learn things. The Antrittsvorlesung reminds everyone in the audience of what the primary purpose of the university is: to generate and convey knowledge. And so what if the Antrittsvorlesung might be a little complex? You American always want everything to be fun, perky, bite-sized, shrinkwrapped into easily-digestible edutainment. One of life's more important skills is sitting still and paying attention. Especially to something that may be a bit challenging to understand, or that you might disagree with. And believe me, that's what most of these graduates are going to be doing a lot of once they enter the hard, cold world of real work. The sooner they start practicing, the better.

Let us now draw a veil before the increasingly heated debate between the American and European. We can all agree that not practicing the graduates' names or seating them in a logical order was incompetent and rude. I've never seen a German commencement ceremony where this was done right. Part of the problem is, of course, the authoritarian design of most German university classrooms, which force everyone to cram in beside one another in cramped, narrow, wooden seats. But another reason is the general lack of professionalism in the way German universities are managed. The task of organizing the commencement ceremony was probably just given to some hapless employee of the Dean's Office or to a team of bored graduate students. Nobody has any incentive to put more than the minimum amount of effort into organizing the event. 'The commencement ceremony has always been chaotic and amateurish,' they think, 'and that hasn't ended anyone's career, so why should I kill myself to make this one much better?'

On the other hand, the situation's even worse in France, where, I have it on good authority, the 'commencement ceremony' generally takes the form of a contemptuous, chain-smoking bureaucrat shoving your diploma at you through a slit in a greasy plexiglas window.

Max Planck Institute for Machine-Gun Fellatio Research

The Chinese poem printed on the cover of the most recent newsletter from the Max Planck Institute (MaxPlanckForschung),

 
means, according to Victor Mair of Language Log:

With high salaries, we have cordially invited for an extended series of matinées

KK and Jiamei as directors, who will personally lead jade-like girls in the spring of youth,

Beauties from the north who have a distinguished air of elegance and allure,

Young housewives having figures that will turn you on;

Their enchanting and coquettish performance will begin within the next few days.

Mair comments drily:

Clearly this is an advertisement for some kind of burlesque business. I did find quite a few references on the Web to a "KK Juggy" from a group called "Machine Gun Fellatio," and apparently the KK in her name stands for "Knickers" and "Knockers." Perhaps KK in the sense of "Knickers and Knockers" is an Australian expression, since KK Juggy (Christa Hughes) is from Sydney.

In the interests of fairness, I should note that the MPI immediately issued a heartfelt apology and replaced the cover. [h/t JR]

Tragically, Teutonically Tedious

On question I occasionally ask myself is: 'Why are so many German professors so unnecessarily boring?' Of course, there are exceptions, many of whom I know personally, yadda-yadda. But the observation still holds.

I use the word "unnecessarily" advisedly. Of course, all professors have to be sort of 'boring'; they're experts after all, and tend not to express themselves in the black-and-white certainties beloved of the tabloids and the pub debate. But in Germany, there's a further joy-killer at work: the expected 'habitus' (roughly, code of conduct) of German professors. Take it away, Greg Nees:

In a Diskussion one is expected to be as impersonal, serious, and objective as possible. This, of course precludes any banter or attempts at humor, which are considered inappropriate. In the German education system similar behavior and attitudes are expected in class, resulting in a more intellectual atmosphere. A German friend, while training as a graduate teaching assistant at a major American university, told me how shocked he was upon being instructed to intentionally use jokes in order to loosen up the classroom atmosphere. Such behavior went against all he had learned as appropriate classroom protocol. (p. 78)

This is not unique to profs: it ties into notions of discretion and dignity deeply coded into German social life. Pick up any book for how to get along with Germans, and it will tell you to speak in as deep a voice as possible and not to smile or make jokes, lest you be considered "unserious" by your hosts / colleagues. That's right -- even one joke can brand you forever as a lightweight.

Note that this blot often cannot be dispelled by actual talent. Again and again, I've seen Germans give the job / position to a candidate of average abilities who has demonstrated mastery of unwritten behavior and dress expectations: who 'conducts himself properly,' uses the expected formal phrases, and 'fits in.' Candidates who display much more talent -- but who appear unconventional in dress, speech, or manner -- are quickly processed out of the system. Their intelligence may be grudgingly acknowledged, but a consensus quickly forms that they might 'rock the boat,' or otherwise prove themselves 'uncomfortable' (unangenehm). As soon as they're declared unangenehm, they're toast.

I'm not saying that Germans won't tolerate eccentricities in extremely gifted people -- they certainly will -- but once you exclude candidates at either extreme of the talent spectrum, Germans will definitely sacrifice some additional talent to obtain a higher level of conformity. Thus, many German professional and academic settings end up as the worst of all possible worlds: they're stuffed with mediocrities who aren't even funny.

Sure, once you get a few drinks into some of these people, they 'lighten up'. But it's important to understand exactly what that can mean. Many Germans have simply never developed a talent for inventing their own witty observations or discerning genuine wit in other people. These are skills they have never been called upon to develop, and which can be positively dangerous in many German professional settings. Once these people lower their inhibitions (invariably through massive alcohol consumption), their version of humor often turns out to be reciting boorish pre-fabricated jokes, often targeting women and minorities. And yes, I have encountered this among German professors as well. Oh boy, have I ever.

If you're getting the idea that I try to avoid socializing with Germans in stiff formal / professional settings, you're right on-target!

Now let us turn to the United States.

To keep myself apprised of the financial meltdown, I sometimes surf over to the blog written by Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman, where he offers analysis of the latest numbers and thoughts on Obama's new economic team. But right in the middle of all this high-flown analysis -- complete with charts and graphs -- I find that Krugman has linked to the following photo:

This is, of course, a Fedcat, which is a parody of a Lolcat, the captioned pictures of cats that are perhaps the Internet's most welcome innovation (Krugman himself captioned this photo "cats are cuter"). After reading Krugman for a while, I turn to Brad DeLong, tenured professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Among the graph-heavy, extremely high-level discussion of the financial crisis that I certainly don't understand, I find that he's linked to this Monty Python video:

Don't these professors realize that they are undermining their sacred honor and the dignity of their entire profession by linking to frivolous, superficial 'humorous' commentaries? Don't they see that they are pandering to the basest impulses of the complacent bourgeoisie, who crave the political pacifier of light entertainment? Don't they realize, as Adorno has over and over patiently explained to us, that laughter and jokes have immanent fascistic implications? And DeLong has compounded his sin by even linking to a 'humorous' video that openly mocks the very fundaments of the monotheistic tradition, which even the unchurched must take terribly seriously!

And yet, somehow, their occasional jokes or ironic comments haven't destroyed their reputations. Indeed, Krugman just won the Nobel Prize in Economics. There appears to be at least one country on the face of the earth in which you can be respected for your intellect without bolting yourself into an exoskeleton of stuffiness. Kind of makes me homesick, to tell you the truth...

Status Reproduction in the U.S. and Europe

In a New York Times article about the American electorate's allergy to elitism, we find the following quotation:

In a nation without a titled aristocracy, an elite education may well be the most important membership card. “American elites have a problem that the Europeans don’t, which is how to assure that their children and their children’s children retain their elevated social position,” said Jason Kaufman, a Harvard sociologist who has written on elites and American culture. “Americans do this through cultural institutions and exclusion — art museums, classical music and tremendously elitist universities.”

Shouldn't read too much into a stray quotation, but, unlike Kaufman, I don't think there's much difference in the way American and European elites reproduce their status.

European countries have abolished privileges attaching to hereditary titles.  Your name may have a "von" or a "de" in it, but that doesn't get you any formal, explicit privileges, except in the very highest reaches of the nobility.  Most of the titled Europeans I know work in ordinary jobs, and have the same concerns as the rest of us.  Of course, noble families do tend to be richer than others, which always helps.  And, as an acquaintance of mine who's a baroness recently told me, the title helps in everyday transactions with government bureaucrats and suspicious landlords.  But if you get poor grades or have no talent, even the most august title isn't going to help you rocket to the top of any hierarchy.  At most, it'll prevent you from dropping out of sight.

In one way, young members of the European nobility have it worse than wealthy Americans: Europe's state-dominated education system has no real counterpart to America's sprawling network of non-selective private colleges of the dumb rich, who will happily accept giant tuition checks to make sure junior gets some college degree, and will even arrange discreet rehab-clinic stays if necessary.  In Europe, a wealthy 19-year old with a glittering title will have to compete against the hoi polloi to get into a state university, because those are the only institutions that confer real prestige.  Most of them do get in, of course, since the less...er, diligent young viscounts will get help from tutors and boarding schools.  But if even that doesn't get them into university, there's no real fall-back option available to them in Europe -- which is why they are often to be found at American colleges of the dumb rich.

Aside from the universities, then, the things Kaufman identifies as markers of cultural cachet for Americans -- museums and classical music -- are used exactly the same way in Europe.  Bourdieu's Distinction says it all here; in fact, one of the main themes of Distinction is that the importance of refined tastes as a sign of social status steadily increased in Europe at the same time as, and because, traditional hereditary privilege was being dismantled.  Especially in Germany, drawing excess attention to your title or wealth is taboo, so in order to establish status distinction, you'll have to sit through a few boring classical concerts, get that precious doctorate (g), and read some books about art and philosophy now and then, just like all your non-titled friends.  (There are also a lot of people who genuinely love art and classical music, bless  their souls, but here, I'm talking about the multitudes who use these things mainly as status markers.)

Private Donation to Private University

German universities, almost all of which are state-run, are now taking little baby-steps to begin soliciting funds from corporations and individuals to supplement their strapped budgets.

These efforts are often poorly managed. One example: almost none of the universities realize that professional full-time fundraisers are needed to develop marketing campaigns and maintain contacts. Instead, universities often ask, or expect, professors to do this job. This is counter-productive, since professors are supposed to be there to teach and write, not glad-hand with wealthy patrons. Besides, professors are generally fairly odd, and most have no desire to spend a large amount of time at social functions talking with rich businesspeople. If they were good at that sort of thing, they probably wouldn't have become professors.

Second, because the professors and (more occasionally) fund-raisers who arrange these donations have little experience negotiating such contracts, the paltry donations that do come in often have strings attached. For complex reasons, it's very difficult to arrange "naming opportunities" in return for donations (i.e., give us $50,000 and we'll name the physics building after you, but that's all you'll get), so the donors often request return favors for the money, such as privileged access to research results, or inside information about who the best students are. I'm not saying the universities agree to these conditions, since they are probably illegal under German law, but they are often pressured to do so. Further, most of the contributions that come in as a result of professor-gladhanding benefit that professor. She'll get a 10,000 Euro contribution to establish an institute in her field of research that bears the main sponsor's  name. This does little or nothing to help universities with their day-to-day budget and infrastructure problems.

One university, though, appears to have gotten more proactive about this. According to the New York Times Klaus Jacobs, a Bremen-born food-industry billionaire who lives in England, just donated $250 million to the International University Bremen, which from now on will be known as the Jacobs University Bremen.

The Times article provides some context: 

Now restored with the money from Mr. Jacobs, this fledgling institution is determined to chart a new course in a country that helped pioneer the modern research university in the 19th century but has lost its edge in recent decades.

Mr. Jacobs, a Swiss citizen who was born in this bustling northern German city, said he hoped his gesture would encourage more large-scale philanthropy in a land where it is largely unknown.

University of Goettingen in the News for the Wrong Reasons

If there's anything more tiresome than faculty politics and infighting at American universities, it's faculty politics and infighting at German ones.

Sometimes, however, the fights make the headlines. Syrian-born Islam researcher Bassam Tibi, a professor at the University of Goettingen, has written many books on political Islam in English and German (here, conservative scholar Daniel Pipes calls a 1998 Tibi tome warning about the dangers of political Islam stylistically "verbose and verging on the pompous," but "brave and brilliant"). Tibi has decided to leave the University and resettle permanently in the United States. He claims the University leadership called his discipline a "weak point" that had to be "eliminated." His blistering, hold-no-punches account (G) of the many indignities he claimed he suffered at Goettingen can be found here. According to him, it will shortly be expanded into an autobiography and published under the English title: "A Life of Suffering as an Alien in Germany"(!) I may translate a few excerpts in the next days, as time permits.

Although the background is very, very complex, it seems that the main reason for the decision, according to this article (G) in Die Welt, is the attitude of the current University president, a natural scientist who, according to certain sources, consideres political science to be "frivolous philosophizing" and who judges disciplines mainy by the amount of outside funding they bring in.

Background: Although German universities are strapped for cash, the idea of hiring competent, professional fund-raisers to bring in outside funding for the University as a whole is still nowhere near as advanced here as in the U.S. Therefore, it falls to professors personally to glad-hand and network to bring in extra funds for the special institutes and research programs which increase a university's prestige. Natural scientists obviously have the fund-raising advantage, because their research often yields practical applications. That explains the tensions between natural scientists and the liberal arts when it comes to fund-raising and administration -- one of the hundreds of fault-lines of envy and resentment fracturing the German university landscape.

I would comment further on the light this affair shines on the deep structural problems confronting higher education in Germany, but that would just be too depressing. Besides, I hear the thud and scratch sense of egos have been getting injured, which can mean only one thing: lawsuits for violations of honor and dignity! Yours truly has better things to do than get involved in one of those. But it will be amusing to watch the fur fly...

Water-Mills and Boring Jobs

I subscribe to a German-language mailing list for the humanities called H-Soz-U-Kult. It sounds ugly but is harmless. It delivers to my inbox conference reports, calls for papers, book reviews, and announcements of upcoming conferences. That's how I became aware of this upcoming important conference (G): "Symposium on Water-Power Use in the Cologne/Bonn Region." Among the presentations: "Historical Development of So-called Industrial Mills"; "Mills and Hammers as Formative Elements of the Cultural Landscape."

However, I'm sure the presentation that will provoke the most controversy -- even more controversy than the explanation of why "Industrial Mills" should really be thought of as "So-called Industrial Mills" -- will occur at 3:20, when the Director of the Rhine-Erft Mill Society presents her "Conceptual Outline for a Documentation Center Concerning Rhenish Mill Culture."

What kind of person would even try to capture the juicy majesty of watermills in a dry, bloodless "outline"? I'm tempted to engage in the favorite pastime of a many marginally-employed Germans. That is, travel to a conference, sit impatiently in the audience until questions are allowed, run up to the microphone, and deliver a 5-minute long, rambling, question-free tirade in which I accuse the speaker of unconscionably ignoring the 'philosophical aspects' or 'social consequences' of the question under discussion.

German Film Teacher on Harvard Students

German director Jan Schütte, who directed the 1987 immigrant drama Drachenfutter ("Dragon Chow") and Auf Wiedersehen, Amerika, is teaching film at Harvard for one year. The German campus freebie magazine Unispiegel asked him what how he would compare German to U.S. students:

There are no bad students in Harvard," said [Schütte], "the bottom third [of unmotivated students] is simply missing." However, Harvard's level is hardly out of reach. A good German student, Schütte says, can compete without special preparation.

[Unispiegel 4/2006, p. 19].