Dean Saitta Interview
Rebekah Shultz Colby

Dean Saitta, a DU professor in the Department of Anthropology and president of the faculty senate, recently made David Horowitzs list of 101 Dangerous Professors, along with such illustrious scholars as Frederic Jameson, bell hooks, Stanley Aronowitz, and Noam Chomsky.

Interviewer: So, how do you think this David Horowitz list relates to writing?

[David Horowitzs researchers] clearly didnt read my stuff before they put me on the list. I mean, they read the titles of my published work. His researchers just looked at titles of articles and assumed from those titles that I was a communist because I write about ancient community. So, the Horowitz thing relates to writing in the sense that critics who are going after professors arent reading our work. Were being selectively prosecuted, or persecuted, based on superficial engagements with our work.

Interviewer: How would describe your own writing process?

Dean Saitta: Writing used to be like pulling teeth, with much procrastination until the pressure came around. Now its gotten easier. Ive learned to sit down and dump stuff out instead of agonizing right from the beginning. Ive learned to love editing what I write, so I try to get to that stage as fast as possible.

[Being on the list] has involved me in a lot of blogging, where Im writing off the top of my head so as to sustain a conversation. The blogging has actually been very useful. When you go online and discover that somebodys taken a shot at you, you have to respond quickly in order to stay in the game. Theyre asking you for your evidence for this that and the other, and you gotta deliver. You dont have time to navel-gaze for too long if you want to stay in the thread and, hopefully, win some hearts and minds. . . . Ive had to think on my feet and respond quickly and try to put together maximally coherent arguments in just a short amount of space. This teaches you to be really efficient [in trying] to encapsulate long arguments in short forms, and I think thats been useful.

Interviewer: How do you use writing in your own teaching? In what ways do you use it?

D: I think Im pretty conventional. . . . I dont know where I would fall on a continuum from basic writing to writing intensive courses, but I think I require a lot of it. I usually dont require in-class exams. I assign students short take-home essay papers, like maybe four or five through the course of a term, and then a research paper. Thats a pretty standard requirement for department courses, with all-graduate student courses requiring a bit more. For the undergraduate foundations and core courses I tend to require three or four short analytical essays through the course of the term. . . I also try to give [students] practice writing Op Ed columns and letters to the editor. I like the letter to the editor thing, especially in the big foundations classes . . . My course with Greg Robbins on science and religion is useful for having students write letters to the editor and position papers because the topics are so emotional and yet you have to be concise. So, I try to mix things up and give students practice with different kinds of writing.

I wish I could require more rewrites of work. Thats always something Ive wanted to do. You know, have [students] submit a paper, then give them feedback, and have them turn in a re-write before they get a grade. But Ive discovered that ten weeks is pretty short, and depending on the class size and content its not always feasible to do that. But thats always something that Ive wanted to do. . . I think students would learn better from correcting their mistakes and they would cultivate a better writing discipline.

I understand that some students have inquired about the university establishing individual blogs for them. [Blogging] with the students would be a good ideait would be a great way, I think, of improving their written work. They can submit short pieces to you electronically and then you can immediately provide feedback in the comments section. Such a format would allow the kind of rewriting and discipline cultivation that would serve us all pretty well.

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