own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment University of Newcastle provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU View all partners In the United States and, indeed, worldwide, academics have been shocked by the arrest of a University of Cincinnati professor of classics, Holt N Parker, on child pornography charges Parker was arrested on charges of distribution and receipt of child pornography in mid-March and promptly suspended from his academic position Scholars have long encountered skeletons in the academic closets of peers and intellectual heroes Personal misdemeanors or crimes range from longstanding mistreatment of family and friends to offensive political beliefs and obscene acts French theorist Louis Althusser (1918-1990) is still revered in some academic quarters as an important and influential Marxist theorist. His work on interpellation the cultural process whereby ideas become embedded and structure one’s life continues to influence academic disciplines from sociology In an entry on Althusser in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy the decline of interest in his reading of Marx is attributed in part to the “ill-fated facts of his life” This is a somewhat casual allusion to Althusser’s murder of his wife, Hélène in 1980. A luxurious description of the act opens his autobiography: I place my two thumbs on the hollow of flesh round the top of the breastbone and I slowly reach the harder zone beneath the ears I feel a great muscular fatigue in my forearms; they ache whenever I give a massage Helene’s features are serene and motionless he was admitted to Sainte-Anne psychiatric hospital and but he continued to be regularly readmitted to institutional care until his death Can scholars separate the murderer from the philosopher? According to Geraldine Finn in Why Althusser Killed His Wife: Essays on Discourse and Violence (1995) His philosophical and intellectual practice cannot be separated from his personal and emotional practice: they are rooted in the same soil and have the same material historical and ideological conditions of possibility … Finn attributes the act not to reports that Althusser was suffering from a psychotic episode but to the conditions of a society that enables male scholars and their work – at the expense of women Paul de Man (1919-1983) did not strangle his wife but he too poses ethical conundrums for scholars A Belgian literary theorist and leading figure of deconstructionism de Man’s intellectual legacy began to seriously crumble in 1987 The cause was the discovery of several articles published in the Belgian pro-Nazi newspaper, Le Soir during the War One in particular was unambiguously anti-Semitic de Man mingled socially with the Nazis in Belgium and maintained allegiance to the occupation regime after relocating to France in 1941 de Man’s anti-Semitic essay has sometimes been linked to his work on deconstructionism what one writes does not represent a definitive meaning Nor does it represent the definitive beliefs of its author While this is a slippery interpretation of de Man’s anti-Semitic writing it demonstrates the link between the public work of the scholar and the private life of the scholarly individual media reports have attempted to forge an intimate connection between his scholarship and the acts leading to his arrest As Parker built an impressive academic career on the study of ancient sexualities – a confronting subject to many members of the general public – the scholarship the scholar and the private man have become intertwined Althusser and Parker (although the latter has not yet been convicted of any crime) provoke a series of ethical questions Should the research of such intellectuals be assigned to the academic junk pile Or should scholars continue to cite their work If scholarship is regarded as an intimate part of a scholar then the answer is probably “no.” Apropos: the scholarship is seen as tainted or inherently corrupt a “no” may come from a more general moral unease Apropos: the act is suitably vile that a protest is in order the research is assigned its own sentence: solitary confinement in the form of censorship But a “no” may be to the detriment of new work and therefore to scholarship But does the citing scholar run the risk of being perceived as validating not only the research Would citation endorse inhumanity, cruelty, racism and other corruptions? Would censuring and censorious scholars be promoting humanity, kindness and racial harmony by shunning authors such as Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun But what if a scholar cannot do anything else but not cite What if the actions or beliefs of an artist or intellectual are so repellent so abject that they incite a response that is not cerebral but something deeper What if Althusser’s strangulation of his wife and his description of it are so shocking that some scholars simply cannot cite his work? For such scholars, the author is not dead, and will never be dead (pace Roland Barthes) as with all monsters and their (written) progeny The Jaguars improved to 10-11 in their spring season South Alabama downed Troy 4-0 last weekend at the MT Shootout "You want to have a strong start against Troy," said USA head coach Nick Brochu "They are always excited and motivated to play us so we have to make sure that we shut them down in the beginning and that was the biggest mistake we made today." South Alabama's freshmen picked up the first two points for USA 5 court and Gerhard Gruindelingh (Pretoria South Africa) outlasted Mansingh Athare 2-6 4 flight over Daniel Bustamante and senior Alex Bernard (Soisy Sur Seine France) secured the match when he topped Anas Rouchdi 6-4 "We had a very important talk between doubles and singles and I told the guys that we are better than that," said Brochu have more energy and we need to get bigger targets and cut down the mistakes." France) claimed the last point for South Alabama with a 6-4 "Shayann has been struggling a little lately and had to sit out a couple of matches," said Brochu but he had to play a higher position than he ever has He competed very well and stayed focused." Patrick Eichler won the only singles match for the Trojans when he edged sophomore Blake Gregor (Griffith Troy rallied after losing the first doubles match with a 9-7 win at the No The Jaguars are back in action on Saturday April 13 when they take on UAB at noon in Memphis "We have one more week to get ready for two big matches against UAB and Memphis," said Brochu "We have to make sure that we heal our injuries clear our heads and get back to work on Sunday." Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, (updated 8/1/2024) and acknowledgement of our Privacy Policy, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (updated 1/1/2025) © 2025 Advance Local Media LLC. 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