Women's Studies... good idea/bad idea?

[BPScooter]

Friends, I'll get clear and succint, with a question:

First, to be clear, I just skipped over about 2 pages of great-looking dialogue due to time constraints.

Second: succint-I teach at a "regional comprehensive university" and have vast experience as student and teacher at "research 1" places. Our university president unveiled a "strageic vision" and an "action plan", complete with goals, bla bla bla.

I took my little pen and circled words. Our college doesn't mention Teaching, Learning, Rigor, Liberal Arts, Scholarship, Wisdom, Literature, or any of that. They do mention things like Diversity, Community, Student, etc. They also were very proud that the Wine-making and Construction management degrees produced 95 percent employment after graduation. Trade school stuff.

What can we hope, when can we hope for it? Where are the great teachers that can take Humanities 101 to a level that will inspire the confused kids of the modern day?

 

[Skeptic]

WS is just a pretty new discipline. Philosophy and science were full of BS when they started. Give it time.

Why? The part of Women Studies that isn't BS--say, the sociological and historical study of women in society--we already had without it. The rest of it--"women's ways of knowing" and the like--is simply BS. There's no point of filtering out the BS in women's studies not because all of it is BS, but because the part that isn't tells us nothing new.

The problem with women's studies is like the problem with the young writer who sent a play to Goethe: the play is good and original, Goethe said, but the problem is that the good part isn't original and the original part isn't good.

 

[Piggy]

Why? The part of Women Studies that isn't BS--say, the sociological and historical study of women in society--we already had without it. The rest of it--"women's ways of knowing" and the like--is simply BS. There's no point of filtering out the BS in women's studies not because all of it is BS, but because the part that isn't tells us nothing new.

The problem with women's studies is like the problem with the young writer who sent a play to Goethe: the play is good and original, Goethe said, but the problem is that the good part isn't original and the original part isn't good.

Echoing what drkitten said about specialization, I think there's a value in using the term to clarify a faculty member's area of expertise, and in identifying courses with that focus.

In other words, it becomes a descriptive term just as "Southern lit" is in the English department, without requiring any unique methods of inquiry.

 

[Piggy]

Our college doesn't mention Teaching, Learning, Rigor, Liberal Arts, Scholarship, Wisdom, Literature, or any of that. They do mention things like Diversity, Community, Student, etc. They also were very proud that the Wine-making and Construction management degrees produced 95 percent employment after graduation. Trade school stuff.

I'm a fan of the trade school stuff. As long as it doesn't become all that's done -- or, worse, that and a lot of touchy-feely non-scholarship.

Oddly enough, the conversion of the English department into a trade school for grad students has largely contributed to the demise of valid scholarship there.

Your average large university English dept is a pyramid scheme. It is responsible for several courses which are universally required, which means it needs a lot of folks to teach those courses. It is usually not feasible to hire enough faculty to do this, and many profs don't care to teach undergrads at all (some depts have a one-course/year requirement, others have done away with any undergrad teaching requirement for tenured faculty). So you need a huge crop of grad students -- many more than can find jobs in the field -- not only to teach the undergrads, but also to fill the courses taught by the faculty.

For historical and other reasons, most of these students will be lit track. However, what the undergrads actually need most are language courses. So rather than receiving the literacy education most appropriate for them, they wind up, say, taking an intro composition course, then moving into a "writing about literature" course or some such, in which lit-track TAs attempt to teach them how to write about poems and short stories, despite the fact that most of the students will never have to write about such things in their entire lives.

As a result, the students aren't getting what they really need, and many more grad students are being trained to be lit profs than can hope to find work as lit profs, but in any case, essentially they're just killing time with the undergrads, with the goal of being one of the faculty who teach grad students to be faculty who will teach grad students to be faculty. And that kind of circularity has resulted in the type of insular scholarly-drift which was mentioned before in this thread. You'd be amazed what can pass for scholarship in English these days, despite some truly fascinating work in the area of language processing. A focus on the latter would actually improve the way we teach undergrads to do what they really need to learn how to do. Instead, they're encouraged to bring rap lyrics into class as poetry, rather than read Yeats.

 

[drkitten]

WS is just a pretty new discipline. Philosophy and science were full of BS when they started. Give it time.

Phrenology was full of BS when it started, too. I don't see you clamoring for departments of phrenological studies.

The problem -- as I pointed out upthread -- is not that WS is a pretty new discipline. It's a pretty new discipline with an inherent structural flaw in the epistemology.

 

[drkitten]

I took my little pen and circled words. Our college doesn't mention Teaching, Learning, Rigor, Liberal Arts, Scholarship, Wisdom, Literature, or any of that. They do mention things like Diversity, Community, Student, etc. They also were very proud that the Wine-making and Construction management degrees produced 95 percent employment after graduation. Trade school stuff.

What can we hope, when can we hope for it? Where are the great teachers that can take Humanities 101 to a level that will inspire the confused kids of the modern day?

Well, this is a good illustration of one of the great flaws in the modern university education system.

It shouldn't be needed.

The "original" universities -- e.g. Bologna of the umpteenth century -- specifically taught the "liberal arts," in opposition to the "servile arts" that were used to earn a living. You didn't do a university degree in order to get a good job, any more than people (today) will take up playing guitar or Dungeons and Dragons in order to get a good job. (Yes, I do know a few professional guitarists, and even fewer professional D&D players. But it's not something I would recommend as career advice.)

However, the university system has proven, by and large, to be a very efficient way to teach people to master difficult material -- hence the rise of law schools, medical schools, engineering schools, business schools, and so forth. One advantage of the university system, for example, is that you get taught by genuine experts instead of mere practitioners -- it's a lot harder to be a law school professor than a lawyer, and your skills need to be that much broader and better. You can also teach many people at once -- I've taught my skills to groups of a hundred at a time in a lecture hall the size of a cathedral. Going one-on-one as an apprenticeship I doubt I could have supervised a tithe of that. But this means that mastery of any discipline has ended up being folded into something like a university course -- and so now we have programmes in construction management and oenology.

Once you have such programs, it's easier and cheaper for employers to hire graduates than to train people themselves.

The basic problem is that the trades aren't willing to accept responsibiility for training their own any more. But they're willing to pay big bucks for the university to do it for them.

 

[hodgy]

Still, some places will accept any degree, no matter the subject matter. Personally, I would find a way to disqualify anyone with that particular degree in favor of another that is not dedicated to activism...unless of course it is an activist that I needed.

I would probably employ her / him if they also had 3+ years J2EE and major telecoms corporations experience (if anyone reading this has - PM me).

 

[hodgy]

One advantage of the university system, for example, is that you get taught by genuine experts instead of mere practitioners -- it's a lot harder to be a law school professor than a lawyer, and your skills need to be that much broader and better.

Interesting comment - I wonder if it is as wrong in your profession as it is in mine. In my line of work 'mere practitioners' are the people defining the standards and approaches used by $multi-billion corporations. The 'genuine experts' - by which I assume you mean University lecturers - aren't. How can they be? the world turns at a faster pace than the academic curriculum.

 

[drkitten]

Interesting comment - I wonder if it is as wrong in your profession as it is in mine. In my line of work 'mere practitioners' are the people defining the standards and approaches used by $multi-billion corporations.

I rather doubt that.

Many of the people defining the standards and approaches, even in fast-moving technical fields like biotechnology and computing, are indeed university lecturers. They're the ones who are driving much of the blue-sky research. The ones who aren't university lecturers are usually operating out of major corporate research labs that are run largely as an extension of the university system (and that swap people back and forth as a matter of routine).

The 'genuine experts' - by which I assume you mean University lecturers - aren't. How can they be? the world turns at a faster pace than the academic curriculum.

Never heard of special topics classes and seminars?

 

[hodgy]

I rather doubt that.

What do you doubt

Many of the people defining the standards and approaches, even in fast-moving technical fields like biotechnology and computing, are indeed university lecturers. They're the ones who are driving much of the blue-sky research. The ones who aren't university lecturers are usually operating out of major corporate research labs that are run largely as an extension of the university system (and that swap people back and forth as a matter of routine).

Ok - so I live in a different world to you - that's ok.
BTW - If you have Java and CSP experience tell me - I'll pay big $$$


Never heard of special topics classes and seminars?[/QUOTE]

 

[hodgy]

I rather doubt that.

Many of the people defining the standards and approaches, even in fast-moving technical fields like biotechnology and computing, are indeed university lecturers. They're the ones who are driving much of the blue-sky research. The ones who aren't university lecturers are usually operating out of major corporate research labs that are run largely as an extension of the university system (and that swap people back and forth as a matter of routine).



Never heard of special topics classes and seminars?

I'm driving discussions on process management in my company - there are commercial issues at stake - give me a novel idea and I may be impresed.

 

[slingblade]

Yeah, I know.

I rant and rave about "philosophy", but I conveniently exclude logic -- I separate it from general philosophy and love it and pet it and call it George and deny it's any of that nasty ole philo stuff.

I do the same with what Gould does in "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" even though he insists that there's necessarily a philosophical component to any interdisciplinary approach to answering questions and developing theories about nature. I stick my fingers in my ears and pretend I didn't hear that.

So here I'll admit (but just for a moment) that "philosophy" and "metaphysics" can be legitimate, even necessary, tools. But now that that moment is over, I'll reassert that, as generally used, they're complete and utter BS and an excuse to build castles in the air.

Hee. Okay. I'm good with that.

 

[hodgy]

Hee. Okay. I'm good with that.

Me too!
Philosophy is how 13 yr olds find rationalism

 

[Piggy]

Regarding lecturers v. practitioners, fortunately, in my current field there are no lecturers. In my previous field, the lecturers were in the business of denying that the practitioners had any value whatsoever, despite the fact that the former could not exist without the latter.

It's my experience that having tenure is a golden opportunity for a very few geniuses to produce absolutely mind-blowing work. But a paycheck -- and having a direct responsibility for others' paychecks -- motivates everyone.

In my business, if you don't get results, if you don't innovate in ways that actually make things happen, you're out of a job.

 

[BPScooter]

So fun, everybody, I love hearing about your challenges.

My challenge is related, I guess. The Arts and Humanities disciplines demand certain habits of mind, a certain acquaintance with history, a certain application of philosophy, and that is not my opinion. People get scared when they run into other people that can pull out a Chaucer quote, or even toss off a comment about what Bohr said about what Einstien said. Or what Russell, Huxley, or Neil Stephenson said.

It isn't, for the scholar of humanities, even an issue about practicality or current need. We've always been a minority. Those of us that dwell upon the words, music, stories of those gone before do possess a thing that one most interested in new trends doesn't--perspective.

I've heard anecdotes about many great "hard science" and "technology" pioneers that also were humanities types. One of my great friends got his degree in Classics and then went on to write computer training manuals for a little company called Microsoft for a while. Ditto with another that after a stint in Gates' community, went on to do graphic work, patents and everything on it, when her original thing was Art. There's an orchestra of MD's in Los Angeles, as I understand.

 

[hodgy]

On re-reading the thread I see I am being a bit extreme. Of course there is very valuable work undertaken at Universities and that is where many technological advances are made - I do not, and never have, disputed that. Good universities and strong research programs are essential for a healthy economy and society.

I reacted to Dr Kitten's 'mere practicioners' / 'genuine experts' comment too quickly but the justification for my being provoked remains. It is certainly true that in my line of work (and therefore I suspect many other lines) 'practicioners' are not 'mere' and are, in fact the people driving progress.

I would contend that there is no-one, in any university in the world who is more expert than me in my specific line of work. I do not presume that I am special in this - I expect that there are many 'mere practicioners' who have no collegiate betters. This is my objection - there are many disciplines where 'genuine experts' are more likely to be found amongst practicioners than amongst lecturers.

 

[elaine]

I never took a women's studies course. I had a western civ professor (an angry man-hater), who pushed the courses.

Perhaps it was an unfair assumption, but it pretty much underscored my impression of what these courses are about; male-bashing and how the world would be a better place if women ran everything. I'm surprised I didn't fail my class.

 

[Skeptic]

I never took a women's studies course. I had a western civ professor (an angry man-hater), who pushed the courses.

Perhaps it was an unfair assumption, but it pretty much underscored my impression of what these courses are about; male-bashing and how the world would be a better place if women ran everything. I'm surprised I didn't fail my class.

Fail? FAIL?! "Pass" and "fail" are hierarchial, opressive, phallocentric-eurocentric "objective" "judgements" that were used for centuries to exclude and opress women and people of color, you know. No wonder your professor refused to be so JUDGEMENTAL about your work.

 

[elaine]

Well, when you put it that way, Skeptic.

 

[skeptifem]

Personally, I like the idea of the general assumption of what a woman is being challenged (before anyone says it, yes, the same applies to men, there just isnt as much material, because men have less gender specific issues).

My sister is a womens studies major, she just needed some sort of degree for her career goals and womens studies ended up striking her fancy. I end up reading her books when she is done with them. I do think womens studies is important. No, she doesnt hate men and neither do I. Hating men does not fall in well with feminist theory. Neither does thinking that women are naturally more understanding or nurturing than men, or that women have something extra to offer over men (or science, as someone claimed earlier). Ive seen my fair share of womens studies woo with 'godess powers' and such, but that does not represent the main stream nor does it represent feminism accuratley. Its a lot more than history, btw. I don't want to go into a huge rant about what it is and isnt, when clearly many here are content with having an opinion without cracking a book first.