Showing posts with label Ruth Padel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ruth Padel. Show all posts

Monday, June 1, 2009

Poetry-Dust-up at Oxford University


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Something of a scandal has erupted at Oxford University over the appointment--and subsequent rapid resignation--of Ruth Padel as an Oxford professor poetry. Apparently Padel had some involvement with eroding the candidacy of Derek Walcott for the same position. The story raises lots of persistent questions about "writer-in-residence" positions, tensions between "the artist" and higher education, writers who are in residence vs. writers who teach (or professors who write), gender, race, and sexual harassment--just to name a few topics left in the wake of the story. Here is a link (and thanks to Dr. Dolen for the heads-up on this story--see Dr. Dolen's Divinations" on the blog-roll):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/weekinreview/31orr.html