Tuesday, September 04, 2007

We're ALL a lousy scholar with an axe to grind?

Okay, now this makes a bit more sense. Word from DePaul has it that the university barred Norman Finkelstein from returning only after ''a series of incidents involving “threatening and discourteous behavior by Finkelstein after his tenure denial. On three instances, campus security officers were called.'' You definitely get the feeling from his webpage that Finkelstein's on a bit of a warpath with a bit of a persecution complex. Actually, I've read his controversial book The Holocaust Industry recently to see what I thought of it- I'm tired of hearing people on line quote from the NYTimes review while pretending that they've actually read it!- and there was quite the melange of ill will, sloppy thinking, and David and Goliath fantasy there. I've refrained from posting a critique because I'm aware that nobody's that interested in it. But, I do get why the university denied him tenure, and it's not because he's a lone voice ''speaking truth to power''- it's because his book is lousy. Given his writings and the weird I am Spartacus movement that's sprung up around him, I'm not entrirely surprised to find out that he can be a bit unhinged.

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