Talk:David Harvey (geographer)
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Good article. Could perhaps do with being a little less hagiographic. Icundell 19:08, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
This was deliberate, when I started it. Nice to see that after a year, 80% of it is intact. SB
I know David Harvey best for his work as an urban theorist - would it be okay to add him into this catagory too? - br
I added the blurb about A Brief History of Neoliberalism in the fifth paragraph as I just read the text and felt that it should be present in the article. Matcoz
Last paragraph: The University of Texas is generally taken to mean the Austin campus (to which the linked article pertains). Brian Berry, however, is at the University of Texas at Dallas (but was previously at Chicago, Carnegie Mellon and Harvard).
What is with the last part, as marxism has faded recently.
Yet another puff for an obscure academic. Wikipedia appears to be inundated with this kind of thing - 'I touched the hem of His garment, and He made me whole' - particularly as regards geographers. Has someone decided to put all the outpouring of their mutual admiration society on Wikipedia? We should be told. 15/9/06
Hey, I coughed recently, and a friend told me the noise it made sounded like 'geographee'. Can someone now write me up as a famous geographer? VS 8th October 2006
I'm working on it right now, in furtherance of my BAPPP qualification (see Discussion about Derek Gregory). 02-11-06
I didn't realize "fame" was the requirement to be included in wikipedia, virtually all academics are obscure. In the grand scheme of things, the most famous intellectuals around are still obscure compared to say, Britney Spears, so should we just only include the famous?...11.30.06
If 'fame' is not the criterion for a wikipedia entry, then why are some academics but not others given write-ups as if they were 'famous'? The point concerns not those written-up in this manner, but those who do the writing-up. What do the latter hope to gain from this client-like behaviour (on which see the discussion about Michael J. Watts)? 02.12.06
Fair enough, the write ups could be better and less obsequious. The Watts entry is particularly horrid. Both of these geographers, while not particularly famous, are influential among geographers and non-geographers alike. The Harvey entry here isn't as fawning as the Watts entry (which should be scrapped and re-written), but could be more critical. Nevertheless, the intellectual influence of both these authors (Harvey especially) is such that the question of their inclusion in wikipedia should be beyond discussion.
Nothing is ever 'beyond discussion'. You’ve missed the point, which is the way ‘fame’ (or ‘influence’) is generated and reproduced. As is clear from the discussion about Watts, the writer of that entry is responsible not just for sycophantic reviews of books edited by Watts but also for similarly fawning entries about other geographers holding senior academic positions. The discussion about Watts details the errors made by the same wikipedia writer in attributing to geographers the critique of post-development that was in fact made earlier by non-geographers. What all this suggests is that ‘fame’ or ‘influence’ is an effect of unwarranted – and in this particular instance, inaccurate – puffery of senior academics by subordinates in the same discipline. 02.12.06
I agree that it is possible for both fame and influence (two distinct concepts) to be generated through wikipedia entries, although it is highly unlikely. Your beef seems to be with the discipline of geography as a whole, where even its most influential figures are unworthy of an entry, with all such entries being merely "puff" pieces.
Again, you are wrong. As my reference to non-wikipedia materials (book reviews) demonstrates, the problem is much wider in scope: wikipedia is merely one particular manifestation of this. My beef, as you so inelegantly put it, is not with geographers per se but with academics who now aspire to celebrity status, and either on their own account or as a result of action by clients, are involved - either directly or indirectly - in self-promotion. Part of this involves making claims to have been the first to criticize this or that wrong theory that ignore earlier critiques which did the same. In this geographers do seem to feature prominently: perhaps it is just the one geographer responsible for a rather large number of sycophantic entries in wikipedia about his senior colleagues, a fawning approach that applies also to his non-wikipedia pieces of puffery, of which there are many. It is a problem, and will not be defined out of existence by claims about the intrinsically worthy nature of those puffed in this manner. The two things - clients composing puffs about senior academics, and the inflated reputation of the latter - are connected. 04.12.06
So...when is it a piece a piece of "puff" and when is it a legitmate entry? That is the original issue raised here and in the Watts discussion. Should the Harvey entry be deleted or not? How about the entry on Marx? That reads like a fairly fawning entry to me. If your beef (sorry, I'm American, we're not so elegant over here) is with, as you concisely put it, "puffery", what are the standards for this?...12/4/06
You might start by asking what the purpose of these fawning wikipedia entries is. Alternatively, you could question the epistemology that underwrites them. Rather than focusing on a person, which immediately takes the entry into the territory of celebrity, in the process reproducing academic hierarchy, there could be a focus instead on ideas, where an individual is identified as one among many who have contributed to a process of intellectual formation. Such an approach has the additional advantage of moving away from the pervasive concept of academic-as-hero (carving ideas out of the ether) that informs these kinds of sycophantic presentation. Intellectual formation is never simply a case of one individual contribution, but a synthesis of knowledge generated by many. Recognition of this fact would also be a useful beginning. 04.12.06
