02-17-2009, 06:16 PM
Dennis Ruhl Wrote:Dr Schmidt;
It's nice of you to drop by. As you must have read, he died in a car accident and I'm sure has spent the last week doing some heavenly explaining for unheavenly actions.
Janko actually just finished his ThD at the University of Zululand by distance education. His dissertation which appeared to borrow heavily from his failed PhD dissertation in Classics at Loyola in Chicago was a commentary on one of Cicero's works relating it to works by Confucius. You might actually enjoy reading it. You might be one of the few people who could understand it.
I don't know what motivated Janko. He seemed to prefer abuse to debate and perhaps had problems expressing himself civily. Perhaps he had problems with some of your works, which I'm sure he would have read, and instead of discussing the matter civily went on a tirade. He was fluent in many languages including German. Chinese, I'm not sure about.
His name was John Weaver-Hudson. His dissertation was at the University of Zululand in 2008 or 2009. The title is "HOLINESS AND HUMANISM: A Comparative-Religions Commentary on Book 2 of Cicero's Laws, with Special Reference to Confucianism and Chinese Thought."
If you find it, give it a read and let us know.
From an academic point of view, I would say, the topic in itself is a failure - what has Cicero got to do with Confucianism, and it is certainly a topic for a PhD in Classics but not in Theology. Second, "Chinese Thought" is more than Confucianism, and you would not understand Chinese Thought nor Confucianism if you failed to look at how it works and worked in Chinese society. Methodologically and else, this topic is as far-fetched as a topic like "The Influence of the Golf Stream on Chicken Breading in the Middle of Nowhere on Mars Planet".
And I smell a rat if I read that he failed with this dissertation somewhere else before it was submitted to the Zululand uni. I do not know that uni but one thing is certain - neither at unaccredited IFTS nor at any decent uni in Germany or elsewhere he would have got away with it. It would be undecent academic practice to submit a dissertation to another place when you failed with the same somewhere before. It does not shed a good light on Zululand uni if they were really involved in such a dubious procedure. When I submitted my 480 pp. dissertation in 1986 to Berlin Free University, I had to sign a paper that I did not submit this thesis somewhere else before. That much on decent academic practice and procedure, and it is really remarkable that this person must have been a real hypocrite if he accused someone else of undecent academic practices while himself being involved in such a thing personally.
I am open to discussing this and related topics with anyone who wishes to do so at at a bit more "neutral" level; for the time being let me say this:
I will not comment on the car crash for good reasons, let it suffice to say that just for purely academic reasons alone reading that "dissertation" would be a complete waste of time to me. I am also sure that he never read any of my books; via my publisher in Berlin I am quite well aware who has bought any of my works before,and that far there has never been any private order from the US (so far mostly only schools and some public libraries).
Have a great day, and take care!