English is the international "lingua franca" of our days. Therefore native English speakers have an advantage in speaking ad writing. So they might visit more often International Congresses (normally in English) and present their papers or publish in anglophone Journals. So, as they are well known in the anglophone scientific community, they might have an advance.

Concerning the question: What can be specifically done to give voice to under-repesented academics? I feel the question aims at presumed discrimination, but the answer for me is clear: "Publish in English or perish!!!!" As example for my opinion: The annual meeting of the German Ophthalmological Society(DOG) has several sessions in English, so a lot of ophthalmologists native English speakers join our Meeting and the native German speakers get familiar with English too.

Sehr geehrter Herr Udo Hennighausen,

Sehr herzlichen Dank für Ihre ausführliche Antwort. Teilweise habe sie recht, dass dies die Norm geworden ist. Aber eigentlich geht es hier auf der Frage nicht ob man in Englisch oder einer anderen Sprache scheiben sollte. Auch wenn man seine Aufsaetze in der englischen Sprache schreibt die in sehrt guten Zeitschriften veröffentlich werden, sieht man dass andere Akademiker sie in ihrer Literaturverzeichniss nicht benützt. Man kann von einenm Druck in der Akademia sprechen wo man im Literaturverzeichnissen Aufsaetze benützt werden die viel zitiert sein sollen. So hat man leider einen Teufelskreis der für nicht-Englische Akademiker einen Nachteil bekommt. Es geht hier leider nicht über die Faehigkeit sonder über Vorurteile. Was kann man individuell tun um diese Vorurteile zu brechen? Ich danke mich für ihre Antwort im Voraus und wünsche Ihnen einen guten Tag.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Murat Öğütcü

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13642520500308162?journalCode=rrhi20

Dear الاستاذ الدكتور حازم طارش حاتم ,

Thank you very much for your recommendation.

Best regards,

Murat Öğütcü

Your question Murat is fundamental!

Who writes history? It used to be that History is written by the victors. Today it is written by English-speaking hard workers.

As Udo said, the Lingua Fanca nowadays is the English language. Many peoples only know the language of their country. Some Arab countries still study Medicine in the Arabic language. Some countries know the English language but only write in their own language, out of pride.

To be in tune you have to know the international language.

An example of self-exclusion is French medicine. At the start of the 20th century, the French were the benchmark in this field. Caught up and overtaken by the Anglo-Saxon countries (experience of two wars, a larger budget…). Out of pride and ignorance of the English language, the French retreated and found themselves excluded from the world medical field. They did not return until after they had adapted to the new system.

2- The watchword is: What you have learned does not belong to you. This is where the Anglo-Saxon system is strong. It teaches generosity of knowledge as well as modesty.

American libraries in universities and university hospitals are at the service of academics. University scholarships are offered to the diligent ones

The world ranking of universities depends on their academic performance. The Anglo-Saxon system requires university or university hospital department heads to publish one or two academic articles per year.

What can be specifically done to give voice to under-repesented academics?

I say to be part of the Anglo-Saxon world, you must not stay on the platform but get on the train even if it is on the last car. Then improve the situation by winning the first class wagon.

1-Teach English language in schools.

2-Create English sections and encourage courses and lectures in English in universities.

3-Give grants to bright and committed students.

4-Invite English speakers to universities.

4-Connect academics to international libraries.

5-Send free for an internship for one or more years, in research centers abroad.

6-The main thing is to understand that success comes to those who work hard.

To Paul,

thank you very much for your excellent essay!

May I add my knowledge of languages used for science, from my knowledge of history of ophthalmology: In the 19th century English, French and als German were the most used languages in medicine and also natural sciences. In Central and East Europe and also in Northern Europe German was the leading language in Ophthalmology. Doctors from Sweden, Hungary and perhaps also of Russia published in German. And in Japan for a long time the patient's records were written in German, as doctors from Japan got their ophthalmological training in Germany, preferable in Berlin. But after World War I this began to change, and then the great catastrophe of nazism came, scientists of Yewish faith or heritage, in medicine and also other fields of science, were persecuted, were murdered or had to emigrate. German is still a language of science, but if one wants his or her papers to be read internationally, one must publish in English. As proof for the importance of ophthalmolgy in Germany in the midth of the 19th century I attach a report about a ceremony due to the 150th anniversary of the death of Albrecht von Graefe, the founder of modern ophthalmology, published in the facebook of Ukrainian ophthamologists. By the way, the first academic chair for ophthalmology was given to Georg August Beer in Vienna. So I attach a report about 200th anniversary of this remarkable historical event (written in German).

Thank you very much for having read my thoughts.

Udo

I must apologize, forgot to attach the report abut Vienna.

Humanity is facing a Seldon Crisis (see Foundation, Asimov), a moment in history when our decisions/actions will have a significant impact on the next few centuries, perhaps longer. There are several factors, but the immediate one is our imminent departure from the home planet. The Moon and beyond is a blank slate. Shall we repeat the mistakes of the Age of Exploration/Empire, when militant nationalism and economic colonialism brought us five centuries of war, violence, and neglect? The alternative is international cooperation. Please consider the proposed Model Implementation Agreement for the Moon Treaty at www.spacetreaty.org.

Thank you for the discussion so far.

Creating your revues and never undertimake your job. We need to make listen your voice. We have right to have a chance and treated equally.

Dear Graça Delfim ,

Thank you so much for your encouragement and support. I hope things will change in the near future for the better. I wish you all the best.

Best regards,

Murat Ogutcu

It is commonly said that history is always written by the victors. In a sense, this has been generally true. The most powerful nations and countries have the financial and political ability to introduce and disseminate a false history of past events. Their interpretation is usually widely accepted, due to the powers of the media and the publishing industry. The true origin and history of smaller and weaker nations are often oppressed and misinterpreted "taboo" issues, let alone the extinct tribes and civilizations. An example is the early history of the Irish and Scottish nations, with their genealogies. Most of it can be proven based on accurate data for the past four millennia, including astronomy. However, mainstream scholars have once dismissed those records and traditions as fictitious and ridiculous. New generations of mainstream scholars generally copy the theories of the previous generations of mainstream scholars. Thus, the errors and false conclusions or interpretations do not decrease but rather increase. This approach is valid for the history of individuals as well. Plenty of data is available for the chronology of Jesus Christ's life. The exact date of the Crucifixion is determined but no major publisher would publish it. (It took place on Thursday, not Friday.) Another example is the autobiography of Robinson Crusoe. He has been a real discoverer and traveler. His twenty-eight years spent on an island of Costa Rica (1658-1686) and all elements of the island's description are solidly proven. Yet, a blind hack critic named Gildon complained that the story had been false because a person could not see a goat's eyes sparkling in a pitch-dark cave. It is needless to say that the world has accepted the optical reasoning of a blind man and qualified the real history as "the first English novel." Defoe kept stating that he had not been the author, rather the editor of the book but no one believed him. Another example is the history and chronology of ancient Egypt. The "scientific" version given by modern scholars is allegedly very reliable between c. 3100 BCE and 525 BCE. In reality, it is a patchwork based on the highest proven regnal years of rulers, without a single astronomical date like a solar eclipse. Such "dead reckoning" is very unreliable: it is wrong regarding the chronology of ancient China as well. The backbone of history is astronomy - a fact ignored by most mainstream historians. One of the results is the competing 6 or 7 chronologies of the ancient world, from super-long to super-short. Most of them do not utilize any astronomical fix point. Finally, a camp of "scientists" (radiometrists and dendrochronologists) claims that there is a shift or discrepancy of c. 120 years between their radiocarbon results and those given by archaeologists (as "non-scientists"). Unfortunately, they are right. The present dates confidently given for, say, King Tut, have an uncertainty of about two centuries. The crucial date is that of the final explosion of Thera in the Mediterranean. In order to cheer you up, if you mean "history" as that of your favourite hockey or football team, history is very reliable and accurate, indeed.

Dear Zoltan Simon ,

Thank you so much for your detailed answer and your comments. It is also the same in the academic critical reviews that only repeat those that have been repeated which usually disregards women, and BIPOC scholars (even if the subject matter is about them, hope you will here more in my near future presentation about this; and also in some near future research).

"Who Speaks for History?" Wednesday 23rd September, 6 pm British ST

With Dr Natalya Din-Kariuki, Dr Murat Ogutcu and Eva Momtaz Chaired by Lubaaba Al-Azami

Organised by MEMOs in collaboration with RenSoc.

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/efnp4cbp/register

Thank you once again for your kind reply.

I wish you all the best.

Best regards,

Murat Öğütcü

Thank you, Murat. Yes, you are right. The voice of weaker parties is often oppressed, and they include women in most countries.

Thank you for all the contributions.

I have found a very precise piece on how we could make academia more inclusive (especially suggested in the bold parts I have highlighted). Please read and share your thoughts. Thank you.

"Why Race before Race Now?

Themes of national belonging and racial otherness shape Shakespeare’s work. From Aaron the Moor, to Cleopatra, Egypt’s Queen, to Shylock, Venice’s Jewish moneylender, Shakespeare’s plays grapple with the ideologies that produced medieval and early modern systems of inclusion and exclusion. Before the high era of biological racism in the nineteenth century, the word “race” had not acquired its pseudoscientific valence but appears as an open-ended concept assembled and reassembled out of other modes of differentiation. The vast range of these concepts, or racial formations, were woven into the tapestry of premodern lives, including Shakespeare’s, and encapsulated ideas about religion, class, lineage, rank, gender, skin color, and so forth. Therefore, scholars of medieval and early modern culture ask two questions: what is race in this context, and how does it function as a sorting mechanism between dominant and minority groups? Using the vocabulary of critical race, indigenous, postcolonial, and feminist theories, premodern critical race scholars, to use Margo Hendricks’s apt distinction, vivify the field’s understanding of the production of hierarchies within and beyond Europe. More importantly, they bring the past in conversation with the present, and by doing so, they are committed to mobilizing anti-racist and decolonial agendas in their institutions and communities.

The social and racial injustices of the first two decades of the twenty-first century, alongside ethnic conflicts globally, have coalesced to put race at the center of premodern studies. But this concentration on race is not a new trend, catalyzed by what the feminist writer and activist Sara Ahmed calls “happy diversity,” or a performance of inclusion that does not attend to structural inequalities at the heart of institutions. More than two decades ago, the field-shifting work of Kim F. Hall, Ayanna Thompson, Peter Erickson, and Ania Loomba, in early modern studies, and medieval scholars, such as Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Tamar Herzog, and Geraldine Heng, among others, laid strong foundational grounds that flesh out the racialized language and imagery shaping our understanding of the premodern past. In a field historically populated by white men, these trailblazers have acted as gate-openers, forging intellectual communities that are inclusive and political. A recent iteration of this model of activist scholarship is Race Before Race, a bi-annual symposium organized by the Arizona Center of Medieval and Renaissance studies in collaboration with the Folger Shakespeare Library. The symposium brings together scholars of color, including Dorothy Kim, Jonathan Hsy, Cord Whitaker, Ruben Espinosa, Patricia Akhimie, and Carol Mejia LaPerle, to name a few, who are advancing the study of premodern critical race in new ways.

From its inaugural focus on premodern race (January 2019), to periodization (September 2019), to appropriation (January 2020), Race Before Race maps out an array of literary issues, historical questions, and critical methodologies, where premodern scholars explore a range of concepts that shaped literary and cultural production. Medievalists make legible the connection between the idea of a white cultural heritage, epitomized in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, for example, and the adoption of these literary fantasies of racial supremacy by neo-Nazi groups. For early modernists, Race Before Race explodes the cultural myth of Shakespeare as a preracial figure of universality and timeless heritage. As Michael Whitmore, the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, observed at the opening of Race and Periodization in September 2019, Race Before Race is a conference that the library’s first director, Joseph Quincy Adams, “had hoped would never happen.” Whitmore was referring to Adams’s inaugural statement at the opening of the Folger in 1932 — a statement riddled with the vocabulary of white cultural supremacy: “[About] the time the forces of immigration became a menace to the preservation of our long-established English civilization” and “[Shakespeare] was made the cornerstone of cultural discipline… Not Homer, nor Dante, nor Goethe, nor Chaucer, nor Spenser, nor even Milton, but Shakespeare was made the chief object of [schoolchildren’s] study and veneration.” In Adams’s formulation, the Folger’s curriculum carried a political mission: to counter the threat of cultural impurity that non-Christian and non-White immigrants embodied. As the draconian immigration acts of 1905 and 1924 show, and the two centuries of black enslavement that came before them, Adams’s fear for the “long-established English civilization” was not a voice in the wilderness, but symptomatic of the historical and cultural contexts that have shaped our past and affect our present.

But the threat to white Western culture, and the weaponization of Shakespeare as a tool of white supremacy, did not only come from across the oceans. It is important to acknowledge Shakespeare’s role in one of the most brutal chapters of Native American history: the Indian boarding schools. In the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, as the research of Scott Manning Stevens shows, indigenous children of North America were voluntarily or involuntarily severed from their families and placed in schools away from their tribal communities. These boarding schools were designed to assimilate Native children into whiteness. Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets were a staple in this curriculum of deculturation — a curriculum whose main object was the complete erasure of the rich native cultural, spiritual, and linguistic heritage and its replacement with English-language proficiency and domestic and manual labor skills. To Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the first boarding school, the Carlisle Indian School, the infamous driving mantra was: “Kill the Indian; Save the Man.”

Therefore, it is not innocuous, in our troubled historical present as in Pratt and Adams’s America, mired by social and racial injustices, local and global, to avoid a wide-ranging discussion of race. The same cultural fantasy that yearns for a post-racial America also lionizes an old-fashioned, universal Shakespeare. It is a logic that views race as significant for the oppressed only, one where whiteness or any other dominant idioms, such as the English language or Christianity, are rendered apolitical, invisible, or neutral.

As a scholar of early modern literature, I study the stories that a nation tells itself about national belonging — stories that invariably hinge on practices of exclusion. My work on dynastic unions demonstrates that these international events are moments of nation-building that also invite intense scrutiny of the racial character of the commonwealth. In my work on the racial anxieties surrounding foreign queens, I find the example of what Ania Loomba and Jonathan Burton have called “travelling tropes” extremely helpful in thinking about the through line that connects the racial formations of the past to our lives in the present. Travelling tropes are stereotypes employed by a dominant group “to engage with, manage, and control peoples considered exotic, strange, or hostile,” as Loomba and Burton note. These discursive archetypes form a vocabulary of control that undermines and contains cultural, ethnic, or racial minorities in the early modern period. This vocabulary travels in a variety of texts and across periods, reaching us in the twentieth century as narrative tools to reduce Native American, African- American, Muslim, Asian, and Latinx communities to dehumanizing stereotypes. Some examples include the pernicious tropes of the magical negro, the drunken/noble/relapsing savage, the model minority, and the welfare queen.

But uncovering the racist origins of worn-out tropes is only the beginning of anti-racist scholarship. How can readers and writers participate in this methodological move towards social justice and inclusion? One avenue is applying the Gray Test — a citation test named for the black feminist scholar Kishonna Gray-Denson. To pass the Gray Test, an academic or general-interests article must cite and meaningfully discuss two women and two non-white authors. The purpose of this test is to ensure that writers and readers do not replicate the erasures of the past in their examination of race and gender dynamics. Another avenue is taking to heart the moving provocation of Kim F. Hall’s Shakespeare anniversary lecture, “Othello Was My Grandfather,” delivered at the Folger in 2016. In her concluding remarks, Hall projects the liberatory potential of engaging with Shakespeare from the margins: “It is not our access to Shakespeare that marks our freedom. It is our ability to inhabit a new Shakespeare in our own terms, to offer him our love, but with our difference.”

This is the Shakespeare of the future. This is the future of Shakespeare and premodern critical race studies. It is a Shakespeare without borders — without erasures, silences, and exclusions. Access and inclusion are the new cultural mainstream.

Mira Assaf Kafantaris

Senior Lecturer, Department of English"

https://medium.com/@assaf.mira/this-essay-was-published-in-the-center-for-medieval-and-renaissance-studies-at-the-ohio-state-688762a07ee3

We speak the history with ouer vision