Summer 2003
Research that matters
Recently I saw an article on the Web titled “Welcome to the Age of Anxiety.” Welcome mat notwithstanding, I decided not to cross that threshhold. Time to take a break from dread.
Wherever you are on the political spectrum, if you spend a lot of time these days reading about world events you just might feel that problems are spiraling out of control. I know that I do. And I have the raw cuticles to prove it.
Sometimes, I think the only remedy is to read less, to know less—after all, ignorance is bliss, right? Well, not exactly. What we don’t know can sneak up on us and bite us—hard. Knowledge may not be power, but it sure beats the alternative.
We asked some of the people interviewed for this issue, “What do you wish for?” Several said, in so many words, a world where compassion rules, and where “working smart” means taking the trouble to pay close attention. In such a world, reading a book—or reading just about anything—with a sharp and critical eye is about the smartest work around.
The more we seek to know, and the more we question what we think we know, the better off we are—the more observant, the more perceptive, the more creative, even the more compassionate. The less afraid we are of the uncertainty and anxiety that come with questioning, the closer we are, in the end, to what we wish for.
The faculty featured in this issue make their living paying attention—asking important questions and positing new ways of seeing, understanding, and living in the world. In the marketplace and households of medieval Europe, historian Ruth Karras discovers new ways to think about modern families and gender. In the daily lives of laborers in poverty-stricken communities of India, economic geographer Vinay Gidwani finds new understanding of global economic and political issues.
In floral bouquets, wetlands, cake pans, and dismembered horses, philosopher Marcia Eaton finds lessons about how we live and how we ought to live. In both the prosperous and the struggling economies of the world, award-winning economist Ed Prescott finds new ways of addressing economic stagnation. In the words and sentences of bilingual children, language expert Kathryn Kohnert finds clues to language learning and assessment. And in the chorus of voices of people from many different lands, ethnomusicologist Mirjana Lausevic finds clues to who we are and what we care about.
Much of what’s best in this world has grown out of the radical rethinking that is the provenance of research universities. At this university, and in CLA, some of the world’s most brilliant minds are looking under and around every theoretical rock to turn received wisdom on its head and help us understand where we’ve been, where we are, and where we want to go from here. Some of their stories follow.
Marica Eaton: In the eye of the beholder: Looking good, being good
Vinay Gidwani: Crossing borders
Ruth Karras: La plus ça change...
Learning from medieval history
Kathryn Kohnert: Speaking out on language development
Mirjana Lausevic: The multicultural meanings of music
Ed Prescott: The Wealth of a Nation