Abdallah sent me this: "Your posts on this topic are appreciated.
Somebody should be pointing out the double standards at play.
For one, you would think from most of the obituaries on news sites and blogs that Crone were some sort of reborn Enlightenment figure. For a scholar so controversial and sometimes wrong (as in the case of "Hagarism" and "Meccan Trade"), she is described as a paragon of academic brilliance: "innovative", "creative", "unflinching", etc..
But the bigger picture here is the fact that if she had been exploring other topics so daringly (regarding historical foundations/origins, in particular), she would have hit obstacle after obstacle, to say the least. And The Economist and many others wouldn't have covered her work (see previous articles in the Atlantic) as if she were some sort of academic superstar with a mind gushing with brilliance, etc
Clear example: Look at what the Economist did with Edward Baptist's The Half Has Never Been Told, which suggests that slavery was foundational to American economic development. Sample quote:
“Mr Baptist has not written an objective history of slavery. Almost all the blacks in his book are victims, almost all the whites villains.”
They later withdrew the review after an outcry. The racism was too obvious.
I mean the book the made her career (Hagarism) ... It's thesis was rejected outright.
Tell me: On what other subject/topic is one able to hypothesize so fearlessly and "creatively", end up wrong, secure a position at an Ivy League university (vs get laughed out of academia), never see a critical word about your writings in major newspapers (in fact, the exact opposite), and continue to dedicate your academic energies to discrediting the origins of belief of 1.8 billion people.
No political/administrative pressure, no professional reprisals, no denial of tenure, no witch-hunts, no campaigns, no monitoring and scouring of every word or statement you make in lectures for something controversial to later be used against you."
Somebody should be pointing out the double standards at play.
For one, you would think from most of the obituaries on news sites and blogs that Crone were some sort of reborn Enlightenment figure. For a scholar so controversial and sometimes wrong (as in the case of "Hagarism" and "Meccan Trade"), she is described as a paragon of academic brilliance: "innovative", "creative", "unflinching", etc..
But the bigger picture here is the fact that if she had been exploring other topics so daringly (regarding historical foundations/origins, in particular), she would have hit obstacle after obstacle, to say the least. And The Economist and many others wouldn't have covered her work (see previous articles in the Atlantic) as if she were some sort of academic superstar with a mind gushing with brilliance, etc
Clear example: Look at what the Economist did with Edward Baptist's The Half Has Never Been Told, which suggests that slavery was foundational to American economic development. Sample quote:
“Mr Baptist has not written an objective history of slavery. Almost all the blacks in his book are victims, almost all the whites villains.”
They later withdrew the review after an outcry. The racism was too obvious.
I mean the book the made her career (Hagarism) ... It's thesis was rejected outright.
Tell me: On what other subject/topic is one able to hypothesize so fearlessly and "creatively", end up wrong, secure a position at an Ivy League university (vs get laughed out of academia), never see a critical word about your writings in major newspapers (in fact, the exact opposite), and continue to dedicate your academic energies to discrediting the origins of belief of 1.8 billion people.
No political/administrative pressure, no professional reprisals, no denial of tenure, no witch-hunts, no campaigns, no monitoring and scouring of every word or statement you make in lectures for something controversial to later be used against you."