Memoir of a Jersey Girl
2005; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 38; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1017/s1049096505055964
ISSN1537-5935
Autores Tópico(s)Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy
ResumoCarolyn Heilbrun famously observed that women of the early 20th century had no models for their public lives, no way to learn the “tone of voice in which to speak with authority.” One is reminded of Jean Elshtain's classic study of the tyranny of gender stereotyping as “public” men and “private” women (Elshtain 1981). The mentoring project at APSA invites us, men and women together, to break down the unspoken barrier between our personal stories and our professional persona. As Heilbrun said, we can't be authentic mentors if we don't “tell the truth about (our) own lives” (Heilbrun [1988] 2002, 25). The trouble is that facts are mute. “Facts need testimony to be remembered,” articulate witnesses with sufficient imagination to make the experiences of modern life understandable (Arendt [1969] 1972, 6). Yet to be useful, as well as authentic, imagination must at least attempt to be truthful. Accordingly, please indulge me while I commit an act of public disclosure and do what my mother always said a lady should never do—talk about herself. Doing so is bad manners and, besides, no one really wants to hear it, she said. I plead guilty to the former, but about the latter I have my doubts. Mentoring in political science is based on the premise that other people need to see reflections of their own careers and lives in yours and vice versa. So at least in this specific context, self-referential writing, the dreaded pronoun “I” may be forgiven.
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