Talk:Michael Witzel

Incorrect Translations and Related Matter

The distinguished Indian archaeologist B.B. Lal pointed out that Witzel incorrectly translated a well-known passage and hung a whole story on this passage to push his pet theory. He was so upset by the lack of ethics shown by Witzel that he titled his paper "Should One Give up All Ethics for Promoting One's Theory?" Here's a link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29757583?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

More of similar unethical behavior is summarized in Agarwal's paper that appeared in Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 31, No.1-2: pp.107-185, 2003: http://www.jies.org/Discussion/MichaelWitzel.pdf

LogicalistAnalyst (talk) 02:12, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

BB Lal pursues one travesty of a scholarship (and I am being mild). Even, if his allegations are true, it will be a case of pot calling the kettle, black. ~ Winged Blades^Godric 19:41, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

And, V. Aggarwal, seriously?! ~ Winged Blades^Godric 19:44, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, well, JIES put it up on their web site in the interest of fairness. They made a mistake, obviously. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:53, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Accusations of racism

Witzel has frequently been accused of racism, based on both his published works and comments made in public. Tok Thompson notes:

"Finally, the startling claim that the book proves the existence of two races, going against all other scholarly data, would have profound implications for global society as a whole, yet these implications are never discussed by the author. Instead, in his conclusion he claims that the reason Abrahamic religions have made inroads into the global south in recent times is simply because Laurasian myth is "better" and "more complete" than any ever formulated by the Gondwana themselves (430), a remarkably naïve view of global political history. To conclude: this book will no doubt prove exciting for the gullible and the racist, yet it is useless—and frustrating—for any serious scholar. This is a work which should never have reached book publication stage: a whole series of scholarly checks and balances—ranging from Harvard's venerable Folklore and Mythology Department, to the editors and reviewers at Oxford University Press—should have been in place to guide the scholarly inquiry, which would have prevented the socially irresponsible publication of such grandiose, brash, and explicitly racist claims based on ill-informed, highly problematic scholarship."

[According to N.S. Rajaram],

Following the Nazi horrors and the American Civil Rights Movement race is now a dirty word. This does not mean that racial prejudices have been eradicated the way polio has been eradicated. Some writers, even academics at supposedly prestigious institutions continue to produce works advancing racist positions behind thinly veiled sophistic arguments while avoiding overtly racist terms. The Origins of World Mythologies is the latest addition to this dubious genre by a singular scholar."

He argues that

"If supported [i.e., if Witzel's thesis is supported], the notion of the superior white and inferior dark races will be scientifically validated. This is the real agenda of the book, but its ‘science’ is rubbish. it does not even rise to the level of pseudo-science. Mythology is just a camouflage to push this prejudice that is simply not worth spending time over. Except for the terminology, its arguments are indistinguishable from those of Houston Chamberlain, Arthur de Gobineau and other race theorists who provided justification of the Nazi idea of superior Aryan race. But their source was European, more specifically Teutonic German."

Adluri and Bagchee cite Lincoln's opinion:

" "Worse still, when treating the myths of non-literate societies, Witzel consistently ignores the more recent, more reliable, and less prejudicial work of British, American, and French anthropologists, in favor of dated German literature steeped in the Kulturkreis paradigm, which used a mix of racial, cultural, and geographic factors to categorize the world's peoples in ways that naturalized, legitimated, and reinforced the privilege of Europe’s colonial powers" (Lincoln 2015, 444). "Scholars who worked within this paradigm identified with many disciplines (Ethnologie, Anthropologie, Volkskunde, Völkerkunde, Rassenkunde, and Rassenwissenschaft [Lincoln could have added: Indologie]), but shared a large number of assumptions no longer intellectually or morally tenable. More important than differences in disciplinary orientation distinction between Germans and Austrians, the latter of whom tended to be missionaries and whose racism could be softer (condescension, rather than contempt). Equally important is the difference between works written prior to 1920, whose subtexts justify colonial expansion and domination, and those written after 1930, which were strongly inflected by Nazi ideology. Works of the 1920s either continued the former trend or anticipated the later, and sometimes both. Witzel relies on a great many works written by scholars of this sort, not just for data, but for many important lines of interpretation. Those he cites directly include Adolf Bastian, Hermann Baumann, Fritz Bornemann, Erich Brauer, Ernst Dammann, Otto Dempwolf, Hans Findeisen, Leo Frobenius, Martin Gusinde, Beatrix Heintze, Hermann Hochegger, Adolf Jensen, Karl Jettmar, Walter Lehmann, R. Lehmann-Nitsche, Johannes Maringer, Hans Nevermann, Alois Pache, Heinz Reschke, Hans Schärer, Paul Schebesta, Wilhelm Schmidt, August Schmitz, Carl Leonhard Schultze-Jena, Wilhelm Staudacher, Paul Wirz, and Josef Dominik Wölfel. There is now a large critical literature on scholarship of this sort, including Gothsch (1983); Marx (1988); Fischer (1990); Linimayr (1994); Jacobeit et al. (1994); Hauschild ed. (1995); Streck ed. (2000); and Evans (2010)" (Ibid., 447n4). "Rather incredibly, Witzel cites one testimony of this sort as a confirmatory antecedent of his own position. [...] The passage cited is taken from Baumann (1936, 1), a work written by a learned scholar and committed Nazi, whose research in Africa was meant to justify German colonization of inferior peoples. He is, moreover, one of the authors on whom Witzel relied most heavily, with more than a hundred citations; on his life and work, see Braun (1995)" (Ibid., 448n7)."

In their view,

"Witzel’s case is not an anomaly. It is evidence of the system's "normal" functioning. The Humboldtian research university developed primarily as a means for Germany to accelerate the production of new knowledge (including the new ideas of race, historicism, and nationhood) and to funnel them into the world in a bid for intellectual and cultural parity with the Western powers, England and France. Under this system's auspices, the university professor, previously in the mold of the English gentleman-scholar, was tasked with developing the historical and anthropological research that would affirm German exceptionalism. Enhanced publishing opportunities, with the departmental journal and the dissertation series as their crux, were central to this initiative."

They add:

"Thus, through the German government's efforts, which unthinkingly poured money into Indology, his colleagues' collusion, who initiated him into their publishing networks, and the system’s institutional inertia, which places academic credentials above valid argument, Witzel's problematic views attained a wide circulation and were canonized as "scholarship." As with Schlegel 1819 (the source of the terms arisch and Arier and the thesis that the Germans were originally known as Aryans when they lived in the Orient; see Wiesehöfer 1990), Lassen 1830 (the source of the thesis of a special proximity between the Aryans and the "warlike Germans"), Schlegel 1834 (the source of the biracial theory of Indian origins), and Klapproth 1823 (the source of the term indogermanisch; see Shapiro 1981) toxic ideas that originally emerged in Germany to assure the Germans of their identity (as rational, heroic, and culturally and intellectually superior) entered into the world thanks to a publishing system designed to serve the professoriate."

Witzel has also been a controversial figure at Harvard University:

• Students have accused him of being a "tyrant"
• There has also been "friction" between him and other professors in the department, and graduate students have complained that Witzel has "behaved unprofessionally."
• An online petition accusing Michael Witzel of being an "Aryan supremacist" has asked Harvard University's administration to "terminate" its association with Witzel and "disband" his department.

References

LogicalistAnalyst (talk) 02:48, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Look, I can appreciate some of what you're saying, but ultimately, this is just too lengthy. Please condense your explanation to address the removal of the sourced material only. Thank you. El_C 03:49, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

The article is written like a self-promotional document at an academic department. It needs to be pruned down and made readable for the general public.

Also, the serious criticism by Bruce Lincoln, Tok Thompson and others needs to be made a part of the story. PhilipSamueli (talk) 16:29, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Some comments:

• Tok Thompson (2013), [2], Journal of Folklore Research - so, that's one critical scholarly review of one book by Witzel. Does that make him a racist? And who's Tok Thompson?
• N.S. Rajaram (2014), Recycled racism in a new bottle, the pioneer: not WP:RS
• Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, Theses on Indology - self-published; not WP:RS
• "no writer attributed" june 5, 1996), (Former Sanskrit Chair Remains Controversial Students Grumble in Spite of Changes, thecrimson.com - The Harvard Crimson, an undergraduate student's newspaper. Any other source available?
• Jonathan A. Lewin (june 7, 1996), Sanskrit Dept. in Disarray, Students, Officials Say, thecrimson.com - idem
• Janamejayan, Dr. Subramanian Swamy, (2011), Citizens to End Racism in Academia: Sign and Fwd. petition against Witzel, Harvard U., janamejayaneconomics.wordpress.com - seriously?

WP:CHERRYPICKING and POV-pushing. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:02, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

N.S. Rajaram is a fringe academic fraud, masquerading as a scholar. His article over here gives significant impressions, in the regard.

Thompson is reliable and accurate but a single source ain’t sufficient for incorporating such a laden word, in light of our BLP policies.

Adluree and Bagchi - WBre Since, we are going by self-published papers, read this by Jürgen Hanneder. ~ Winged Blades^Godric 19:51, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric: - WBre? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:44, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, weird stuff. ∯WBG^converse 07:38, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Witzel's mostly self-published

Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, authors of The Nay Science (Oxford Univ Press, 2014) allege many of Witzel's publications are actually self-published and recycled works:

"Michael Witzel's CV is perhaps the best example. For the first part of his career, his publications were restricted mainly to German venues interspersed with minor Indian and Nepali and German journals. The dissertation (Witzel 1974) was self-published. The journals included the Journal of the Ganganath Jha Research Institute, Vishveshvaranand Indological Journal, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik, and the Journal of the Nepal Research Centre (the latter, again, controlled and paid for by Germans). The latter offers another example of how German Indologists were reliant on starting their own, mostly short-lived publishing venues: eight volumes appeared intermittently from 1977 to 1988, four volumes between 1993 and 2001, and the journal was then dormant for eight years, until briefly revived—for a single issue—in 2009. Chapters were published in various Festschriften (for Wolfgang Voigt, Paul Thieme, Karl Hoffmann, B. R. Sharma, Wilhelm Rau, J. C. Heesterman) and some Japanese proceedings. The first major publication was Willem Caland's Kleine Schriften (Witzel 1990), but it was paid for by the Glasenapp Stiftung (type 3 in our typology above). The Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies finally started in 1995, thus assuring Witzel of a publishing venue. The term "journal" may be an exaggeration, since "issues" consist of unformatted, unedited mostly one-article pdf files uploaded to the internet. Many articles were published more than once. "How to Enter the Vedic Mind? Strategies in Translating a Brāhmaṇa Text" (Witzel 1996a), first published in Translating, Translations, Translators from India to the West (in the Harvard Oriental Series, whose editorship Witzel assumed in 1990), reappeared as Witzel 2013. "Early Sanskritization" (Witzel 1994), first published in the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, reappeared in the Journal of the Indological Society of Southern Africa (Witzel 1996b) and in Recht, Staat und Verwaltung im klassischen Indien (Witzel 1997). The latter was not coincidentally edited by Witzel’s "old friend" Bernhard Kölver (Witzel 2014a, 16n44). Two edited volumes (Witzel, ed. 1997, and Osada and Witzel, eds. 2011) followed. Both were published in the Harvard Oriental Series by the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies and its successor since 2011, the Department of South Asian Studies. Witzel functioned as series editor, illustrating how firmly entrenched the German model of the department as a vehicle for a mandarin professoriate's career interests has become. Witzel's edition of the Kaṭha Āraṇyaka, self-published from "Erlangen-Kathmandu" in 1974, reappeared in Witzel's Harvard Oriental Series in 2004. Once again, it was published by Witzel’s chair, the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University."[108]. (Source: Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, Theses on Indology)

LogicalistAnalyst (talk) 14:55, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Best example of what? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:05, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Ah, right:

Due to the more open and competitive nature of its market, the situation differs somewhat in the United States. There is greater separation between chairs/departments and publishing organs, and publishers are answerable to the reading public’s interests, in contrast with Germany, where the state is both the financial backer of and buyer of last resort for Indological publications. But German publications are translatable into institutional status and, ultimately, a foreign publishing contract. Many German Indologists’ CVs reveal how they progressively built up a dossier of home-grown publications, before securing international positions.

Talking about WP:CHERRYPICKING. The suggestion that Witzel's [publications are irrelevant, or lack scholarly status, is misplaced. Ironic, by the way, to use a quote from a self-published paper to create this suggestion. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:19, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Andrew Nicholson, Review of The Nay Science: A History of German Indology by Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee:

A more serious problem is The Nay Science’s criticism of many of today’s major Indological scholars. In footnotes, the authors fault James L. Fitzgerald and Angelika Malinar in particular for their erroneous application of the “pseudocritical” methods of German Indology to the Mah ābh ārata and the Bhagavad Gītā, respectively. In discussing Hauer, the authors write that “[as] with all other Indologists, his scholarship was placed entirely in the service of religious, nationalistic, or ethnocentric needs” (p. 277). Sweeping statements such as this appear frequently, but the authors of The Nay Science fail to substantiate these charges with any sustained analysis of the interpretive mistakes of living scholars. As it stands, the evidence presented against contemporary Indological scholarship in this book consists primarily of guilt by association.

Perhaps in the name of a corrective to previous injustices, the authors consistently deny the hermeneutical charity to their German objects of study that they extend to Gandhi and to the authors of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute’s critical edition of the Mah ābh ārata. The latter example is particularly perplexing: the authors of the BORI critical edition self-consciously borrowed and applied the principles of textual criticism pioneered by 19th century Germans in their edition of the Mah ābh ārata. Ethnocentrism, plagiarism, and bias transcend national boundaries, and a more even-handed study would have at least alluded to the ways in which “German Indology” has become a trans-cultural phenomenon that has been applied and transformed by thinkers beyond Europe. What makes certain non-German historical-critical and text-critical scholars praiseworthy, while others are condemned? As valuable as this book is in its critique of scientism in philology, because of the authors’ rhetorical choices, The Nay Science may exacerbate the false idea that there is an impassable gulf between the practice of Indology in continental Europe and the way it is practiced elsewhere, especially in North America. In reality, these boundaries are disintegrating thanks to the increasing interactions of a younger generation of European, North American, South American, and Asian Indologists.

To remind you: Nicholson is the academic author who was ungratefully plagiarized by Malhotra. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:27, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Wait, the long passage quoted above is not in Nay Science. Where did it appear, if at all it did? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:14, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Theses on Indology, a self-published paper (oh irony). Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:45, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

"Laurasia" and "Gondwana"

Guess why the baby looks like an elephant!

Does Witzel not know that, in India, it is the "Gondwana" myths that rule the day? The "Laurasian" myths are dead! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:58, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Request for changes to be added to the article

Michael Witzel's article is filled with extremely misleading summaries that portray him as a massive critic of hindu sectarianism. While it may be somewhat accurate, it's a bit misleading since Witzel has also made it clear that against all forms of sectarianism and not hindu sectarianism specifically. Also, there's far too much attention given to him regarding the california textbook controversy which again somewhat gives a misleading impression of him. I have some changes I would like to make and just wanted to inform everyone. If they have an issue my edits they can bring it up under this headline. Krao212 (talk) 19:38, 6 January 2021 (UTC)