A Quick Note on Texts

A local commentator, Patrick McIlheran, spoke with me yesterday and then posted about my first comment on the Marquette hiring non-hiring of Jodi O’Brien. In his online article he sources four writings of Dr O’Brien, the first of which is from back in 1996, while the latter three come from 2004 and after.

Just a caution: we academics evolve and hopefully improve through our careers. Holding O’Brien today to something she wrote fourteen years ago just because the article can be accessed today is not cricket. She may well subscribe to the same beliefs today, but it’s only fair to draw that conclusion from reading her most recent writings.

Only half-joking I tell my students that instead of giving up some simple transitory pleasure for Lent each year I take up the heavy penance of reading the papers I wrote in graduate school.