Pride Without Prejudice

A letter of recommendation for wifey: (↓)

Cognitive Linguistics
[an American university]
Cognitive Science Department
[address]

August 7, 2008

To Whom It May Concern:

This is to recommend very strongly, and without reservation whatsoever, the candidacy of [tristein].

I have known this candidate since she took two of my graduate seminars a few years ago on archeology of knowledge and post-structuralism. She proved herself to be a highly disciplined mind, very self-directed and highly motivated. She did an excellent job in both these seminars, and passed with the highest marks. There is no doubt in my mind that she was, in the group of her peers, an exceptional member by every available measure.

Let me emphasize this fact. By all accounts, [tristein] is, possibly, among the best students I have been working with in interdisciplinary domains in the last twenty years or so. She is at home in these demanding intellectual fields, and perfectly at ease in the domain of continental philosophy and culture, and that of her studies and research in linguistics, her primary field.

[tristein] is a strongly independent mind whose allegiance, from what I have been able to see, is to her intellectual commitments. During the seminars, and in all her research papers, she has been extremely good at conceptualizing complex issues, and integrating them into situations she could analyze from her personal experience and theoretical positions. The reading programs of seminars she has participated in, are, generally, heavy, and exacting in their scheduled tasks, from week to week. They require discipline, along with a critical ability to read, synthesize, and evaluate the implications of competing positions and hypotheses, as well as philosophical theses. By any standards, the texts explored in post-structuralist theories, and in the archeology of knowledge seminar, all of them, constitute a hard test, even for the best prepared students. In effect, the class has to face three difficult tasks. There is, first, that of decoding transcultural grammars, and their structuration beneath the textuality of major theoretical essays; for instance, by XIXth century German philologists, Edmund Husserl, and Jean-Paul Sartre or Michel Foucault in philosophy. There is, secondly, the task of mastering often opposing philosophical systems through principles required by a strict method, the phenomenological argument of bracketing a priori paradigms. There is, finally, the task of integrating the preceding approaches in a personal perspective, and constructing a level transcending conflicts of interpretation that takes into account the American reception of continental philosophy.

The technical languages, the methods, and the ethical issues are, in themselves, a serious challenge for any researcher. Not only is [tristein] capable of developing her own sense of these different fields, but she has gone so far as to test their suppositions in two remarkable papers that she wrote for me: the first on "Meaninglessness and its Incidence" from a contemporary exploration in semiotics, and the second on the Geertz figure about "Turtles all the way down" for the archeology of knowledge seminar.

Personally, [tristein] is a very discreet, yet unjustifiably modest person. Let me emphasize also that during these seminars, she demonstrated a solid psychological maturity, as well as an excellent sophistication in understanding highly complex human predicaments, such as those issued forth by books read in class.

The last forty-two years, I have been associated with some of the most respected Institutions of higher learning; and, they include, in Europe, the following: Berlin and Cologne Universities (Germany), Cambridge (UK), Louvain (Belgium), Paris-Nanterre X (France); and, in the United States: Haverford College, Stanford, and now Duke.

In comparison with all students I have known, at a comparable stage of their education, I don't hesitate to rate [tristein] among the best I have recommended, insofar as intellectual drive is concerned. In brief, she is an exceptional mind, has a very strong sense of her commitment to her studies, and has energy and method. In a word, [tristein] is, with a high probability, a future leader in whatever field she chooses to invest her talents.

It is, thus, with the deepest professional and personal conviction that I recommend [tristein] to you.

Sincerely,
[professor's name withheld for privacy]