Trent and Caitlin talk with Dr. Aris Clemons, an Assistant Professor in Linguistics, about the various slanders and misapprehensions that plague her field of study. We discuss language ideologies, the illusion of objectivity, the futility of being “apolitical” in a political institution, ethnography and lived experience, “other ways of knowing,” and other concepts that get weaponized in attacks on the academy from the right and the center.

References:

Aris’s book chapter: https://academic.oup.com/book/56269/chapter/445192927

Universities as business entities: https://jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1gk07xz?turn_away=true

Science and subjectivity are compatible: https://iaphs.org/sciences-objectivity-conundrum/

A brief history of measurement: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/

James Watson was no master of objectivity: https://vox.com/2019/1/15/18182530/james-watson-racist

Research has always been political: https://bioethicstoday.org/blog/the-folly-of-apolitical-science/

“Apolitical” science treated humans like objects https://thoughtco.com/u-s-governments-role-sterilizing-women-of-color-2834600

“Institutional Neutrality” https://chronicle.com/article/institutional-neutrality-is-censorship-by-another-name