Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,816|6390|eXtreme to the maX
Picking out a sample from Uzique's link:

"Publishing the Stuarts: Occasional Literature and Politics from 1603 to 1625"
"Telling Time: Temporality and Narrative in Late Medieval English Literature"
"The Emergence of Species: Animals, Humans, and Literary Form in  Eighteenth-Century Britain"
"All the World's a Market: Economic Life on English Stages, c. 1400-c. 1625"
"Imagining the Parish: Parochial Space and Spiratual Community in Late Medieval England"
"U.S.-China Political and Literary Exchange, 1925-1955"
"Social Protest and the Novel: Chartism, the Radical Press, and Early Victorian Fiction"
"Speculative Ethics: Victorian Finance and Experimental Moral Landscapes in the Mid-Century Novels of Olphant, Trollope, Thackeray and Dickens"           
"The Nation of Counties: Literature and Local Identity in Victorian England"             
"A View Of The Thing: The Visual Art Of The Victorian Novel."
"Liberal Visions: The Art World, The Social World And The Victorian Novel."
"Vendible Shakespeare."
"The Fruit Of Pain: Rethinking Sympathy In The Victorian Novel."
"Moral Sensibilities: Ethical Feeling And Narrative Form In The Victorian Novel."
"The Afterlife Of Fiction: Reprinting The Nineteenth-Century British Novel."
"The Third Sphere: Male Intimacy And Developmental Narrative In Nineteenth-Century Britain."
"Politicians In Show: The Circulation Of Political Knowledge In Early-17th Century English Drama."
"Lady Killers: Women, Violence, And Representation In Medieval English Literature."
"Uneasy Justice: Images Of The Legal System In The Victorian Novel."
"Fagin's Incorruptible Appren Tice, The Monster With Two Heads, The Unsinkable Chu-Zzlewit, And The Dispossessed Young Gentleman Of Blunderstone Rookery: The Dickens Orphans From Allegory To Autobiography."
"Empire On Paper: Interventionist And Isolationist Literature In The United States, 1939-1941."
"Snapshots Of The Past: Novel Istic Memory In The Age Of Photography."
"The Impossible Contract: Law, Parentage, And  The Victorian Novel."
"'Common Profit': Economic Morality in English Public Political Discourse, circa 1340-1406." [Distinction]
"Differently Centered Worlds: The Traveler's Body In Late Medieval European Narrative (1350-1450)."
"Defining The Human: Medieval Discourses And Practices Of Animal Subjugation."
"Shakespeare's Common Prayers"
"The Rudiments of Eloquence: Pedagogy and Literary Practice in the English Renaissance."
"Lyric Forces: Organizing English Poetry 1557-1591."
" -- your ghost-work": Figures of the Peasant and the Autochthon in Literature and Politics, 1880s-1940s."
"A Fever of Speculation: Narrating Finance in the Nineteenth-Century Novel."
"Straight Talk: Community, Conflict, and Critique in the Lives of Women Saints in Medieval England."
"Cultural Englishness and the 'Homeopathic Dose': Jewishness in the Victorian Novel."
"Only through Time: Structure and Temporality in Three Modern Sequence Poems." [Distinction]
"Proximate Others and Distant Selves: Writing Culture in Late Medieval Europe."
Seems to me English depts are doing a lot of work which has no value in the modern world.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2011-12-18 04:22:11)

Fuck Israel
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755
like i said it's by no means an extensive list, and i can't defend or comment on what an american university wants to throw it's immense funding wealth behind. there's a lot more money behind research in the states because they're obviously private institutions. english research at english universities has - as of 2011 - as a TOP criterion a 'relevancy'-type assessment. it has the entire establishment up in a furore because it apparently infringes on the enlightenment-principles of academic research. but there you go.

also i'm not going to try and educate you on why, for example, research into economics/law/history/sociology of the victorian era is so important to today's world. there are lessons to be drawn from every period of history-- especially if you're doing hard economic work or studying political systems. history is cyclical. it's not as if this stuff is totally irrelevant, is it? often times much of this research will involve as part of its methodology taking current philosophy/politics/economics and applying it retroactively, e.g. looking for traces of neoliberalism pre-neoliberal era, to try and understand the genesis of its thought. not my interest, admittedly, but it can be very fruitful. and as for the medieval stuff... medieval literature studies is normally a cross between english and ancient history departments. they normally end up in some stuffy department somewhere teaching beowulf and norse sagas to undergraduate fantasy geeks and historians. j.r.r. tolkien was one of these people and you've just been reading one of his books that is 90% the product of a man educated in medievalism. the hobbit and the lord of the rings are norse sagas rewritten, and are full of his academic interests (i know, i had to suffer a term long course as a prerequisite to graduating on tolkien's fiction, which basically involved learning a 1000 year old language and translating it for thematic study). so even then you can't say it's completely useless, because you've been getting quite a lot of enjoyment out of it recently .

apart from those points, it seems to me that your main problem is that they're english students doing research focussed primarily on - shock! horror! - topics pertaining to literary studies. you've bitched constantly about that sort of thing for 5 years so i don't see why reading a list of completed PhD titles is going to miraculously change your mind. let me know when all those pure physics/maths PhD's being done at top academic universities end up having any real-world relevancy, either. didn't you get the memo? universities are mostly places for "knowledge for knowledge's" sake. and there's nothing wrong with that; not everything should conform to market logic. market logic itself is newer than the university or academy. i submit that without research and furthering of human knowledge (no matter how incremental or esoteric it may seem, in 2011, far into the development of the disciplines) it is still a very important endeavor. but i think at the end of the day our attitudes on that come down to a fundamentally different disposition: i think learning and education are two of the finest things in life/experience, you want shit that can get positivistic results.

Last edited by Uzique (2011-12-18 05:14:07)

libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,816|6390|eXtreme to the maX
The Hobbit is great, however I don't see how looking backwards really helps.
I'm sure its interesting, not convinced its of any use.

Temporality and Narrative in Late Medieval English Literature - Sorry, no.
Fuck Israel
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755
if that person's career aim is to teach medieval in a medieval/philology/ancient history department, and if it's their passion, then what harm are they doing? of course not every PhD is going to tick the 'furthering human experience directly in 2011' box, but then again NO PHD FROM ANY DEPARTMENT will always tick that box. like i said this isn't an english department problem: science and math departments will suffer from it too. most of their work is pure theoretical work, and serves only to prop up the vast apparatus of science and math theory. so what? it's a noble endeavor, and hell, some people are interested in it.

may i remind you (seeing as you obviously read it with typical dilderp relish) that the discussion with jay was defending the 'work' that english departments do, arguing that it is just as academically demanding and rigorous as any pure science/math research. jay's line that "english professors spend their time searching for rare books and discussing the use of the comma" has been neatly and finally dismissed by your own list, as you can see that it clearly takes a high-level of understanding of many other academic fields. in that list above i see: philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, economics, law, poetics, rhetoric, classics, international relations.

so i'm glad we cleared that up. the debate over the 'use' of PhD-level academic research has come up here many times before, and i don't really see any point in defending it to you guys. as i keep saying at the end of the day your stance on 'intellectualism' and 'the academy' is a personal one, dictated by a whole bunch of attitudes/sentiments that won't be budged by any rational argument. either you think people locked away researching esoteric, highly-specialized things is 'worth it' in the grand scheme of human progress and understanding, or you think it's a load of twoddle because it doesn't benefit you materially or practically in any way. you're free to have that opinion, nothing will change it.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755

Dilbert_X wrote:

The Hobbit is great, however I don't see how looking backwards really helps.
I'm sure its interesting, not convinced its of any use.
i'm sure even some of the most non-academic military guys here could tell you the importance of a military history degree (as well as just intellectual pleasure, that is). likewise a lot of economist work is done on historical analysis. to say that "looking backwards doesn't help" is complete bunk and you know it - you're just being obstinate for the sake of it. looking backwards to learn new things about today is merely the arts/humanities equivalent of learning the existing theory and hard science before being up to the cutting edge in research. a poorly performing analogy, i know, but 'looking backwards' (to a point) can be an extremely profitable exercise.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,816|6390|eXtreme to the maX
There's learning history and there's writing a PhD in "Economic Morality in English Public Political Discourse, circa 1340-1406"

I'm sure researching how Noah sharpened his chisel would be interesting but I just can't see the value there either.
Fuck Israel
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755
the thing is you haven't read any of these PhD's so you can't possibly know what they entail. you're guessing it's going to be an arcane and irrelevant study. very foolish of you. for all you know the abstract of that paper may argue that the economic morality and public political discourses of 1340-1406 set a precedent and are the first examples of an economic system and public political discourse that is prevalent TODAY. you simply do not know and cannot say without reading it (or at least the abstract of the paper). i linked the list to demonstrate that a broad range of academic knowledge is demanded in english depts - against jay's moronic assumptions - not to try and justify every single PhD paper ever written as being 'valuable'. to most people even assigning a concept of (market) 'value' to an academic paper is anathema. but, aside from that, you're being a bit of a dipshit if you're concluding that none of these papers even try to be relevant or to give insight to contemporary life, just from their title. do you normally deem books not-worth-reading and shitty by glancing at their covers, too?
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755
you're basically just totally wrong about 'looking back' being fruitless and having no value. here's an e.g.: i'm reading a study of mass culture and the culture industry which has as its core 2 long 100-page sections that perform a reading of episodes from homer's the odyssey. this is to analyze and make comment on culture in 1947 (which is still relevant, crucially, today). is it fruitless research and a waste of reading? no. the historical research and use of the 'past' is simply demonstrative-- representative, allegorical, analogical, or however else you want to rhetorically twist it. sometimes you can explain a complicated point or illustrate a vastly intricate argument through an example: fictional or otherwise. a researcher may be taking a seemingly esoteric piece/period of history to demonstrate an argument that is (completely or in part) essentially contemporary; literary academic studies employ metaphor as a powerful way of explaining and elucidating on complex thought. adorno and horkheimer used homer - epic, fictional literature from 2,500 years ago - to explain relations between power, labour and knowledge in 1947. but then again i take it you'd read the title of their essay: 'Odysseus and Myth and Enlightenment' and would say "totally useless". even though it is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential critical studies in sociology and mass culture ever written, vitally important today. lol.

just an example. you're misunderstanding it on two parts: first the fault of your own (bias) reading, which is easily dismissive and contemptuous; second, the methodology of academic work (especially in english). the practice is normally to anchor or base your argument in a period or genre or work of literature-- that's the 'literature' part, after all. the fact is that it doesn't limit you or proscribe you from writing about anything current. it's just the structure and method of academic work. sure, your essay is ostensibly concerned with a bunch of statesmen in the 14th century - and that's the surface-level historical research, or leisurely literature reading - but the core and actual aim of your essay can be concerned with anything linking to that. do you understand? i'm just trying to explain to you how the work is done, to perhaps show you that you aren't (and necessarily can't) 'get it' from a PhD thesis title.

Last edited by Uzique (2011-12-18 05:08:02)

libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755
and may i remind you that, whilst this has all been a massive tangent, our sentiment was initially the same (for all academic research): entrepreneurs aren't good academics. assigning market 'value' and prioritising or squeezing any form of academic endeavour because of market pressures is foolish. this whole load of bollocks about academic work in arts/humanities has just been to counter jay's silly jibes about non-science departments basically being overpaid librarians. underlying it all (and in my defense of some random fucking guy's PhD thesis) is the same point: 'value' and marketisation of academic research is short-sighted and idiotic. once you get over your petty grievances against (and gross misunderstandings of) other areas of academic work - i.e. the non sciences - then you'll see that we all essentially agree on the same point. then we can continue discussing the LHC's research, despite its costs and politician's consternation. because we all agree that it is very much A Good Thing.

Last edited by Uzique (2011-12-18 05:26:06)

libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Macbeth
Banned
+2,444|5870

I'm a bit lost so what are you guys arguing about and how did it start?
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,816|6390|eXtreme to the maX

Uzique wrote:

the thing is you haven't read any of these PhD's so you can't possibly know what they entail.
I'm assuming the title had some bearing on the direction of the text and the bulk of the content. It generally does for academic texts.
do you normally deem books not-worth-reading and shitty by glancing at their covers, too?
Fiction no. Academic texts yes.

If I'm not interested in reading about "jewishness in victorian novels" I'm definitely going to skip a PhD paper entitled "jewishness in victorian novels".
Fuck Israel
Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6959|Canberra, AUS

Macbeth wrote:

I'm a bit lost so what are you guys arguing about and how did it start?
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755

Dilbert_X wrote:

Uzique wrote:

the thing is you haven't read any of these PhD's so you can't possibly know what they entail.
I'm assuming the title had some bearing on the direction of the text and the bulk of the content. It generally does for academic texts.
do you normally deem books not-worth-reading and shitty by glancing at their covers, too?
Fiction no. Academic texts yes.

If I'm not interested in reading about "jewishness in victorian novels" I'm definitely going to skip a PhD paper entitled "jewishness in victorian novels".
please read my above post about the naming conventions of humanities PhD's. you're being a literal mong. ta.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755

Spark wrote:

Macbeth wrote:

I'm a bit lost so what are you guys arguing about and how did it start?
prompted by question about 'use' and 'value' of higgs research
point turns into general point about 'use' and 'value' of scientific research
mutates into discussion of political/economic pressures on all academic research perceived to have no immediate 'use'
discussion predictably hijacked for 2 pages by science zealots disclaiming the possibility of all academic research having any 'use'
long lengthy discussion trying to educate 2 fervent science nuts about 'work done' outside of the scientific world
final grumpy refusal to change minds, arrived at for the 1000th time
normal discussion resumed

there you go.

Last edited by Uzique (2011-12-19 03:34:12)

libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,816|6390|eXtreme to the maX
Its hard to see where it is in that unpunctuated wall of text, don't they teach sentences, paragraphs and so on any more?

Apart from that, what are you saying, that English depts do research on history, philosophy and sociology?

In which case why not just study history, philosophy or sociology and simply call it that?
It seems English depts really don't have much useful work to do and so have to branch into other areas to have anything at all to keep them busy.
Fuck Israel
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,816|6390|eXtreme to the maX

Uzique wrote:

prompted by question about 'use' and 'value' of higgs research
point turns into general point about 'use' and 'value' of scientific research
mutates into discussion of political/economic pressures on all academic research perceived to have no immediate 'use'
IIRC It was from Uzique suggesting Science depts shouldn't do pure research but should focus on work useful to society
discussion predictably hijacked for 2 pages by science zealots disclaiming the possibility of all academic research having any 'use'
No, it was just arts 'research' we're struggling to see the point of.
long lengthy discussion trying to educate 2 fervent science nuts about 'work done' outside of the scientific world
I wouldn't really say a lmgtfy link or a link to an American University you haven't been to really count has hard work on your part.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2011-12-19 03:43:46)

Fuck Israel
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755
you clearly missed me typing paragraph after paragraph of explanation in order to be ignored/not comprehended, then. if you had read the posts leading up to that, you'd know that i only linked that university also because it is close to jay, and is a typical example of a research-driven university. i was advising him to do his own research because there's fucking loads of stuff on the internet to find

as to your first post: if you really don't understand at this point why english departments exist, then you're a mong. their research is cross-disciplinary, yes, but then again so are MANY academic departments nowadays. high level research after 1970 or so has all been based in cross-disciplinary fields - you'd be a dumb, regressive university if you 'only' exclusively focussed on your area. "missing the bigger picture". the forte of english departments is literary analysis: finding and discussing these concepts and ideas through the prism of literature. it's just a different methodology and a different way of looking at other big academic concepts. like i said, sometimes the metaphorical or allegorical function of a piece of fiction can be far more eludicatory and can aid understanding far more than a straight technical description. sometimes (though i am not this way inclined), people think that poetry can express an idea in a far more eloquent, condensed way than a 750 page textbook. in any case, it all supplements the ideas with superstructural cultural reification.

Last edited by Uzique (2011-12-19 03:52:21)

libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755

Dilbert_X wrote:

Uzique wrote:

prompted by question about 'use' and 'value' of higgs research
point turns into general point about 'use' and 'value' of scientific research
mutates into discussion of political/economic pressures on all academic research perceived to have no immediate 'use'
IIRC It was from Uzique suggesting Science depts shouldn't do pure research but should focus on work useful to society
and great reading! from the outset i've said that i think it's bad that academia is marketised or pressured by outside forces. i even ended my little kindergarten lesson to you and jay here with the statement "we both agree that pure research in the sciences is A Good Thing". you really are an insoluble twat sometimes.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,816|6390|eXtreme to the maX
I'd rather research a subject than spend time looking at metaphors and allegories of the subject, its all very clever, I just don't see the point.
Fuck Israel
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755
well obviously you do research the subject and do all the reading on the subject, too. otherwise you'd never be able to comprehend it or see the point of the literary allusion or example . culture springs from ideology. culture comes from the social and economic conditions that foreground it. understanding culture is understanding society through a different aspect. it's not all metaphor and allegory, of course, but what it is undeniably is good academic research. as good and as rigorous and as demanding as any other. in pure academic terms, just as worthy as pure academic/thereotical study of maths/science. it furthers human understanding, which is the grand goal of academic research. as i said about 2 pages ago, at the end of the day it boils down to a difference in temperament: you have no time for culture, you'd rather just research the base idea and be done with it. fine. but you're ignoring half of the picture, there. don't belittle it because it doesn't interest you.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,816|6390|eXtreme to the maX
Its not ignoring half the picture, metaphors and allegories are just different angles of the picture - why not just look at the picture?
Fuck Israel
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755
clearly you are not bothering to read my posts anymore, so i think we're done here. you're even more obtuse than jay on the subject, only it's doubly frustrating trying to explain simple things to you because i get the distinct impression that you aren't half as dumb as jay, only twice as churlish.
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,816|6390|eXtreme to the maX
Just poking to try to get an answer, not convinced just yet - sorry.

Academics may well define 'good academic research' in a particular way, I don't necessarily agree with it.

I've read hundreds or thousands of papers, the standard definition of what makes a good paper - pages of reviews of previous work, grovelling to the supposed experts in the field carefully referenced and footnoted, maybe a few sentences of something useful or original followed by pages of self-analysis and discussion of how this one new thought fits with the established orthodoxy - its tiresome bollocks and we'd all be served better if it were done differently.

When there's nothing noteworthy whatever and its just an excuse for someone to sit on their bum in a lab or library for five years, or its arts research which has no concievable real world application, then I can see why Pol Pot sent the intelligentsia out to plough fields with their hands.
Fuck Israel
Uzique
dasein.
+2,865|6755
ok. yeah lets send the intelligentsia out to get real jobs on farms! sometimes you really do trip over yourself on the way to the mong bathroom.

Last edited by Uzique (2011-12-19 04:26:13)

libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/

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