Your editorial of July 11 criticizing the Modern Language Association for rejecting the nomination of Carol Iannone to the National Council on the Humanities calls for a response.
It is not only proper, but essential, that scholarly societies guard zealously the integrity of their respective disciplines. While some might relegate specialized journals to an inconsequential limbo-as your pejorative term ”obscure” does-your contempt invalidates neither their existence nor their function.
I wonder if your writer, given a choice of surgeons to perform bypass surgery on him or her, would choose one published in the Wall Street Journal over one published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Clearly, ”refereed journals” have an important place in the world of thought.
Perhaps the nominative shoe is actually on the political foot opposite to that suggested by your writer: perhaps Ms. Iannone was nominated in the first place on a basis not of expertise, but of having passed a conservative litmus test.
