I'm still working on finishing the 2020 Academic Reading challenge before 2020 is over. I just have a few categories to go and am hoping to squeeze them in around some other "for work" reading that I also want to do before the year is up. This morning I started what seems like it will be a fascinating account of field work in the Hare Krishnas in the 1970s from sociologist E. Burke Rochford Jr., Hare Krishna in America.
According to his introduction, he began doing research as a graduate student in the mid-1970s, but was unable to get the group to treat him as a researcher:
Instead of accepting my repeated assertions that I was a researcher, the devotees invariably refused to accept my explanation, seeing me instead as a 'spirit-soul' who had been sent by Krishna. I saw myself as being there to conduct research, that was my problem, and was of little or no concern to them.
What is a better pairing for this spiritual enthusiasm that the author experienced that George Harrison's Hare Krishna paean, "My Sweet Lord". By the time I get to the end, "I Am the Walrus" may be the best pairing, but I guess I'll find out.
The dreadful year 2020 is almost over, which means it's time to start planning our academic reading challenge for 2021.
I hope you'll join us for this fun experiment in resisting the push to academic over-work, over-specialization, and time-rationing and give yourself permission to read academic books that aren't immediately obviously instrumental for your next project. Those books you bought at a book exhibit two years ago? time to open them up and start reading! That book your colleague wrote that you bought but didn't get around to yet? It's category #1.
The Covid-19 pandemic has created burdens and opportunities for readers, so this year instead of matching a song about books and reading with the challenge, I'm pairing Randy Newman's Corona-virus song from April "Stay Away From Me" with the official Reading & Listening post for the 2021 challenge. The vaccines may be here, but we're not done with this yet, so please follow Randy's advice. If you watch the video and listen to the words of the song, you may also find you agree with me that Newman is prescient about the things that would come to define the social-distancing experience for many of us. Finally, he's got a bookcase behind him and books piled by the piano (is that Borges or Berg in the title face up on the bench?) making this video a great way to start thinking about your next year of reading. Glad to see he - or the Venus in Sweatpants mentioned in the song - is a fan of Elena Ferrante, or at least Europa Editions.
Who and What the Academic Reading Challenge is for:
This is a challenge for academics who feel that their reading has become over-specialized and possibly joyless, who want to read more literature for pleasure, who want to broaden the way they approach their own research and teaching, who like to talk about reading with each other, who are interested in interdisciplinary reading, and who want to support their friends and colleagues by reading their books. You don’t have to be a professor to do the challenge. Maybe you graduated from school but you miss reading academic books. The challenge runs for a year and emphasizes reading across academic disciplines. If you are a professional academic or public intellectual outside the university, this challenge is meant to give you a structure for reading outside your area of specialization - including reading literature - and to provide a space to talk with others about the experience. If you are a general reader who likes reading serious works of non-fiction, this challenge is also for you. It's a structure that you can use to read works of the type that you might not have encountered since you were a student.
We have a Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/160467571369051/ In this group we talk about the challenge categories for the year and occasionally discuss what we've read and plan to read
The challenge starts on January 1, 2021 at midnight and goes till Dec. 31, 2021. There are a total of 15 regular categories in the challenge, and FOUR “extra credit” categories for over-achievers.
The academic books must be at least 175 pages long
Novels must be at least 200 pages long
Books of poetry or special issues of journals must be at least 100 pp. long
One book can be a children's or YA book.
To decide whether a book is academic, look for something published by a university press, or check the acknowledgments for references to scholarly mentors and anonymous readers.
Any book on the list, except where specified otherwise, can be a novel or a complete journal issue as long as it fits the general category
Books can only count for one category, but you can switch them from one category to the other before you’re done if you like. (In other words, you can't count a book by your friend who wrote a memoir of a coup for both the memoir about a coup and the "by a friend" categories.)
Only one book can be something you’ve read before
Audiobooks are fine as long as they are unabridged and the print edition is at least 200 pages long.
Books must be started no earlier than midnight 1/1/21 and finished no later midnight 12/31/2021
Points: This isn't a competition, but if you're counting…
Total possible points for 1-15: 200
Total possible points for all extra-credit: 250
1. A book by a friend,
colleague, former teacher or former student 10
2. Classic in your
field that you’ve never read or book you see cited often but have never read 10
3. Book about the
place you grew up 10
4. Book about place
you want to travel to when this mess is over 10
5. History of medicine
or illness 20
6. Book about
isolation, quarantine or lockdown 20
7. Book about LGBTQ+
politics or culture outside the U.S.A. 20
8. A book recently
translated into English 20
9. A book about visual
arts or the biography of an artist 10
10. A book about a
place, time, concept, or topic adjacent to what you study 20
11. Book Published
before 1900 10
12. A memoir about
politics, revolution, counter-revolution, or coup 10
13. Book about
pre-modern trade routes 20
14. Graphic novel,
graphic non-fiction, or collection of comics 10
15. Nonfiction book
about animals and/or animal psychology 20
EXTRA CREDIT:
Extra Credit: Award
nominee that didn’t win the award 10
Extra-Extra-Credit:
Award winner or nominee that won an award that you’d never heard of 20
Extra-Extra-Extra
Credit: Book about a commodity 10
