The Minerva Consortium

[marct]

Hi Randy,

At least, in evoking Minerva, the ancient Roman goddess of warriors and wisdom (and commerce, poetry, medicine, crafts--she was apparently a bit of a professional student), the Pentagon didn't come up with a credibility-zapping name, like the "Center for the Non-Lethal Study of Indigenous Peoples" or somesuch.

Probably because she was the last surviving Etruscan deity in pantheon of late comers . But, yes, a good name choice.

I appreciated the SECDEF's comments regarding ROTC and study of foreign languages. I find it interesting that, since my own undergraduate experiences back in the 1980s, my alma mater has since eliminated its foreign language department. The university now encourages students to study abroad for a semester or two. It seems like it would be a good thing for future Army (in my case) leaders to be exposed in this way, not only for language-acquisition, but for developing cultural awarness. Too many lieutenants' first experiences with someone unlike themselves happen inside the sandbox. Better to build perspective prior to deployment.

Touch hard for me to comment on since we don't have anything like that up here. I will note that my university (Carleton in Ottawa) is actually expanding its language programs (especially Mandarin) as well as international placements. The program I teach in, Directed Interdisciplinary Studies, really pushes placements and has for decades.

I wonder whether Minerva Consortium efforts might also result in some questionable avenues for academic research. ...
In terms of anthropology, I'm more apt to argue for a hands-on "community planning" approach--how can we support governance at a local level, for example--rather than a more purely academic approach about this sheik, his father, and his father's father.

I find myself in a rather odd position here; I am primarily a theoretician who does an incredible amount of applied work. If we use the physical sciences as a model, I would think that the best avenue to take would be some fairly wide open basic research. I think that limitations to studies of governance issues or community building is a major mistake (BTW, I've studied and theorized about these issues in a variety of settings). Also, as an FYI, one of the classics in kinship studies, E.E. Evans-Pritchard's The Nuer used fieldwork that was paid for by the Colonial Office at the request of the British military.

One of the things I would like to see would be a bonus for multi- / inter-disciplinary proposals that incorporate both theoretical and applied research from many different disciplines.