Norman Finkelstein, Class Act

And that’s class with a capital “a”

http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/dershowitz-enraged-as-harvard-hillel-embraces-boycott-dershowitzs-schlong/

finkelstein

No wonder his books aren’t selling.

16 thoughts on “Norman Finkelstein, Class Act”

    1. no, he is not….he is just against the leadership because they are more popular than him and he says he wants the movement to be honest about their goals….which include the destruction of israel

      which he happens to be fine with…

  1. norman is a shut in

    disavowed by the bdsholes for calling them what they are, “the cult of barghoutti”, he no longer earns any money on speaking fees

    he cant get a job in academia, because his phd is a joke

    here is norman on don jew hater and senile bustany’s radio program

    http://archive.kpfk.org/mp3/kpfk_140413_130040meif.MP3

    don really stepped in it and norman was only happy to oblige

    1. His PhD was a work of political theory. It was enough to get him a string of visiting and adjunct positions. What was curious was that he landed a tenure track job after a dozen years as a very marginal academic. I do not think it usually works that way. His department wanted to retain him and the senior administration said no. Some people purportely familiar with the situation at DePaul said the administrator’s and cross-departmental committees which review tenure recommendations are quite clear that some minimal respect for a Vincentian ethos is expected from candidates, a respect that the hyper-obnoxious Finkelstein never managed.

      What was the scandal is that he was hired anywhere after the first few posts. He not only had been ejected from at least one for performance deficits, after he finished his dissertation he never worked within any subdiscipline of political science – not political theory, nor international relations, nor comparative politics. I supposed you could call him an areal specialist, if a very narrow one and without language skills. He called himself a ‘forensic scholar’, which meant he did no original research but read other people’s work and attacked it, often impugning their motives and character in the process; supposedly, his projects were assigned by Noam Chomsky. The bulk of his publications were placed in The Journal of Palestine Studies and incorporate no historical or sociological research. I’m not sure the journal is refereed, but it hardly matters since his material is not the sort of thing peer review can legitimate.

      The man is 60, was in school on and off until he was 33, and did not have aught but temporary salaried employment until he was 49. He’s never married, has no children, and God knows how he pays his bills (bar, perhaps,a subvention from his brothers?). It’s dreadfully sad, though less so than it would otherwise be because of his oft displayed malice.

      You can see Richard Silverstein blow a gasket over a plain assessment of Finkelstein’s life and work here.

      http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2007/11/02/columbia-grants-abu-el-haj-tenure/

      1. his phd was a book review
        who else on this planet earned a phd reviewing a book

        as an undergrad and graduate student, i did many critiques of papers….you dont earn a degree simply by critiquing other’s works…you earn one with original research and scholarship….which norman has never done

        1. It’s been a while since I looked at the entry in Dissertation Abstracts (see that exchange with Crazy Dickie), but IIRC his degree was awarded by NYU in 1986 and it was a study of Zionist political thought. It was not published and you’d either have to order a microfilm on loan or a generated typescript. Have you read it? I’d be very skeptical that a research university political science department would award a doctoral degree to the producer of a book review. Political science departments are seldom the locus of corruption in a place (though political science is a sketchy discipline).

          Abu al-Haj is likely not a fraud, just not a productive researcher (see my commentary for the details). You might offer mulligans given the expense and complications of anthropological fieldwork, but IIRC (it’s been a while), her work incorporated little archaeology and it consisted of archival research on archaeological digs rather than digs of her own.

          1. im sorry, even norman admits that his dissertation was based on an analysis of from time immemorial. he can label it whatever he wants, but that was the gist….and why it took so long for it to be accepted

            as for abu al haj….her conclusions are based that the connection of the jewish people to the land is a myth

            makes her a jew hating fraud

            dont care how many languages she speaks or how many books she has published

            1. He did publish a magazine article in 1985 on Peters’ book, but look at the title of his dissertation. That’s not an assessment of a piece of historical demography. It would be very strange for a committee in a political science department to accept such a thesis topic. He published a book chapter in 1988 on Peters’ work. The Google books citations at the end are truncated, so you cannot see if he cited his dissertation.

              The man completed his master’s degree in 1980 and the date on the PhD is 1987. Princeton never catalogued his master’s thesis. Peters’ book was published in April 1984. I will wager the dissertation was under production ‘ere Peters’ book hit the stands.

              A man without any skill set in historical demography would have to be a nut to lay aside his dissertation to attempt to dissect a 600 page book which relied a great deal on primary sources, but then again he is.

        2. My bad. It was awarded by Princeton in 1987. Evidently the typescript runs to 213 pp. The title is “From the Jewish question to the Jewish state : an essay on the theory of Zionism”. That would have been a digestion of secondary literature.

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