In Professors at War: Searching for Dissent at the MLA, Scott Jaschik describes a recent meeting of English professors and their thoughts on the war in Iraq:
Not that there was much actual debate. In more than a dozen sessions on war-related topics, not a single speaker or audience member expressed support for the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan. The sneering air quotes were flying as speaker after speaker talked of ‘so-called terrorism,’ ‘the so-called homeland,’ ‘the so-called election of George Bush,’ and so forth.”
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The closest public challenge to the prevailing geopolitical views at the MLA came when one professor asked a panel that had derided American responses to 9/11 and Iraq what a good response would have looked like. She didn’t get much of an answer, left the session, and declined to elaborate on her question.But a young professor of English who followed her out the door to congratulate her did offer some thoughts on politics at the MLA. Aaron Santesso of the University of Nevada at Reno described himself as being “on the left” and sympathetic with much of the criticism of the war in Iraq. But he said that the tenor of the discussion “drives me nuts.” “A lot of people here don’t want the rhetoric to just be a shrill echo of the right,” he said.
Just a few years ago, he noted, the Taliban was regularly attacked at MLA meetings for their treatment of women and likened to the American religious right. Now, there is only talk of how the United States has taken away the rights of the Afghan people.