Fwd: Middle Eastern studies
Micahel Berube writes:
Hi Doug–
Just for the record, people other than Alan Wolfe will search in
vain for a sentence in What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? that
saysThere is “more than a grain of truth” in the charge that Middle
Eastern studies departments are generally biased against Israel.That’s what happens when you get reviewed by Wolfe, you know–
sometimes he confuses his position with your own. Most of my eight- page discussion of ME programs goes after the Pipes/ Kramer
jihadists on the right. The “grain of truth,” entre nous (and I
should have said so in so many words, not that it would have
prevented Wolfe from pulling this one), has to do with the
conservative complaint that academic ME programs don’t encourage
people to go into govt service. That much is quite true, fwiw.
But the words “biased against Israel” just never appear in the book.I know you don’t owe me any favors, but I’d appreciate it deeply if
you’d mention this to the LBO group. Michael Bérubé Paterno Family Professor in Literature Department of English Pennsylvania State University