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Gender Studies (along with Critical Theory, Intersectionality, etc) are some of my non-programming educational pursuits, and I agree. That stuff is hard. And

Gender Studies (along with Critical Theory, Intersectionality, etc) are some of my non-programming educational pursuits, and I agree. That stuff is hard. And not just because of the density of the language, a lot of it is conceptually very difficult to grasp, especially for those whom it does not viscerally effect. Maybe engineers should be required to take an intense, no-hands-held Gender Studies class, if the other departments are required to take difficult math classes.

hugh3 15y ago
Gender Studies (along with Critical Theory, Intersectionality, etc) are some of my non-programming educational pursuits, and I agree. That stuff is hard. And not just because of the density of the language, a lot of it is conceptually very difficult to grasp, especially for those whom it does not viscerally effect. No, because it's bullshit. Bullshit can be made arbitrarily hard to understand, and it's generally productive to do so if you're an academic trying to justify your own existence.
- _delirium 15y ago
  That's, unfortunately, a common reply by people who simply dislike some areas, and refuse to believe that not everything they don't understand the purpose of immediately is crap. I even used to be one of those holier-than-thou, "this is pomo obscurantism!" insufferable science undergrads myself. Of course, like most, I hadn't spent any real effort researching the subject before reaching such a "conclusion" (conclusion in quotes because I didn't really investigate the matter, just picking up a few quotes from Chomsky and Sokal or whatever)... I actually still dislike lots of it, especially the secondary literature (which is, I think, full of garbage), but it doesn't take that much reading in the history of philosophy to gain a basic understanding of what problems 20th-century continental philosophy was responding to, or to realize that they weren't all insincere idiots who somehow pulled the wool over everyone's eyes for 80 years.
- michaelchisari 15y ago
  I'm not talking about dense language. Actually, there are some pretty brilliant orators and writers who take these ideas and put them in pretty accessible language. But the ideas are still difficult. They lead in increasingly complex directions in terms of how we got here, where we are, and what to do. I recognize that unnecessarily obscure language is a hallmark of academia and socio-political thought. I think tomes like Negri's "Empire" wallow in it. But what I'm referring to is what happens when you get past that, either as the reader, or as the theorist.
  - jerf 15y ago
    You should spend some time with some serious, high-level astrology. I am not kidding. You will find that there have been brilliant defenses of it over the centuries, and it is full of various tidbits of ancient wisdom from the wisdom literatures that you may find quite profound. It is, nevertheless, bullshit, because it can not be meaningfully mapped back to reality. Its predictions are bunk, the framework it offers you doesn't work when pulled into the real world, if taken truly seriously it decreases your ability to make accurate predictions about the world and the people in it. People had centuries to polish the turd, even to find painfully clever ways of including little tidbits of non-turd in the turd, but it's still a turd at its core. The presence of a few good tidbits in a discipline proves nothing about it. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to define something totally false in every detail. The question to be asked is how much truth the discipline has, and how well it can not merely assert the truth, but demonstrate it in a non-self-referential manner. Pretty much every social science in the modern era fails this test miserably. Ideas that sound profound are a commodity, truth is harder to come by.
    - teamonkey 15y ago
      That's only looking at it through one particular lens. The cultural value and historical context of these writings are useful to explore. Also, as a forerunner of modern astronomy, astrologers' observations were incredibly accurate and are still relevant to the field.
      - 15y ago
patio11 15y ago
conceptually very difficult to grasp I walked out of university with a degree in engineering (CS), conversational fluency in Japanese, and a degree in cultural studies. When I think of moments of difficulty during my education, "Women can be black and blacks can be women, too, which complicates things, because the experience of black women is not the same as the experience of black men or white women. This is ignored by a lot of writing about the experience of being 'black' or being 'women.' That is bad." is not one of them. (This is the thirty-second version of Intersectionality.)
- michaelchisari 15y ago
  This is the thirty-second version of Intersectionality Do you really think that's fair. Don't you think that a snarky "thirty second version" of anything can portray that area of study as a waste of time?
mturmon 15y ago
I think Classics or Comp Lit might be more daunting than Gender Studies. That is, a field of study with a nigh-bottomless reading list. The more you can read, and the deeper and more varied your cultural vocabulary, the better your essays will be. A field with clear advantages for ability to read or speak multiple languages. That is, if you want to excel. Some of the commenters here have clearly never taken a humanities class with a challenging reading component.
- telemachos 15y ago
  One data point: I was the sole major in Comparative Literature at my undergrad college. At the time, the department had a requirement that you do four higher-level literature courses in two languages that were not English. That meant that you had to reach fluency in two (non-English) languages by the start of your third year. Nobody did it, and eventually (years after I left) the department began allowing people to get Comp Lit degrees by reading works solely in translation (something my professors found hideous). One nice thing about being the sole graduate in your subject? You win all the university and/or departmental awards in that subject by default. Looks impressive (to outsiders) but feels awkward. For what it's worth, my two languages were Ancient Greek and Latin (I went on to study Classics in graduate school), so apparently, you wrote your comment just for me.
  - mturmon 15y ago
    I knew a German lit student and looked at his summer reading list (to prepare for grad school). It contained about 100 books, and he aimed to grind through a substantial fraction of them that summer. I read a lot (back then), but not at that level. That was one of the experiences, besides the time I took French and had my ass handed to me by people who were also simultaneously studying other languages, that brought home to me the linguistic workload that can be part of a humanities degree.

hugh3 15y ago

Gender Studies (along with Critical Theory, Intersectionality, etc) are some of my non-programming educational pursuits, and I agree. That stuff is hard. And not just because of the density of the language, a lot of it is conceptually very difficult to grasp, especially for those whom it does not viscerally effect. No, because it's bullshit. Bullshit can be made arbitrarily hard to understand, and it's generally productive to do so if you're an academic trying to justify your own existence.

_delirium 15y ago
That's, unfortunately, a common reply by people who simply dislike some areas, and refuse to believe that not everything they don't understand the purpose of immediately is crap. I even used to be one of those holier-than-thou, "this is pomo obscurantism!" insufferable science undergrads myself. Of course, like most, I hadn't spent any real effort researching the subject before reaching such a "conclusion" (conclusion in quotes because I didn't really investigate the matter, just picking up a few quotes from Chomsky and Sokal or whatever)... I actually still dislike lots of it, especially the secondary literature (which is, I think, full of garbage), but it doesn't take that much reading in the history of philosophy to gain a basic understanding of what problems 20th-century continental philosophy was responding to, or to realize that they weren't all insincere idiots who somehow pulled the wool over everyone's eyes for 80 years.
michaelchisari 15y ago
I'm not talking about dense language. Actually, there are some pretty brilliant orators and writers who take these ideas and put them in pretty accessible language. But the ideas are still difficult. They lead in increasingly complex directions in terms of how we got here, where we are, and what to do. I recognize that unnecessarily obscure language is a hallmark of academia and socio-political thought. I think tomes like Negri's "Empire" wallow in it. But what I'm referring to is what happens when you get past that, either as the reader, or as the theorist.
- jerf 15y ago
  You should spend some time with some serious, high-level astrology. I am not kidding. You will find that there have been brilliant defenses of it over the centuries, and it is full of various tidbits of ancient wisdom from the wisdom literatures that you may find quite profound. It is, nevertheless, bullshit, because it can not be meaningfully mapped back to reality. Its predictions are bunk, the framework it offers you doesn't work when pulled into the real world, if taken truly seriously it decreases your ability to make accurate predictions about the world and the people in it. People had centuries to polish the turd, even to find painfully clever ways of including little tidbits of non-turd in the turd, but it's still a turd at its core. The presence of a few good tidbits in a discipline proves nothing about it. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to define something totally false in every detail. The question to be asked is how much truth the discipline has, and how well it can not merely assert the truth, but demonstrate it in a non-self-referential manner. Pretty much every social science in the modern era fails this test miserably. Ideas that sound profound are a commodity, truth is harder to come by.
  - teamonkey 15y ago
    That's only looking at it through one particular lens. The cultural value and historical context of these writings are useful to explore. Also, as a forerunner of modern astronomy, astrologers' observations were incredibly accurate and are still relevant to the field.
    - 15y ago

patio11 15y ago

conceptually very difficult to grasp I walked out of university with a degree in engineering (CS), conversational fluency in Japanese, and a degree in cultural studies. When I think of moments of difficulty during my education, "Women can be black and blacks can be women, too, which complicates things, because the experience of black women is not the same as the experience of black men or white women. This is ignored by a lot of writing about the experience of being 'black' or being 'women.' That is bad." is not one of them. (This is the thirty-second version of Intersectionality.)

michaelchisari 15y ago
This is the thirty-second version of Intersectionality Do you really think that's fair. Don't you think that a snarky "thirty second version" of anything can portray that area of study as a waste of time?

mturmon 15y ago

I think Classics or Comp Lit might be more daunting than Gender Studies. That is, a field of study with a nigh-bottomless reading list. The more you can read, and the deeper and more varied your cultural vocabulary, the better your essays will be. A field with clear advantages for ability to read or speak multiple languages. That is, if you want to excel. Some of the commenters here have clearly never taken a humanities class with a challenging reading component.

telemachos 15y ago
One data point: I was the sole major in Comparative Literature at my undergrad college. At the time, the department had a requirement that you do four higher-level literature courses in two languages that were not English. That meant that you had to reach fluency in two (non-English) languages by the start of your third year. Nobody did it, and eventually (years after I left) the department began allowing people to get Comp Lit degrees by reading works solely in translation (something my professors found hideous). One nice thing about being the sole graduate in your subject? You win all the university and/or departmental awards in that subject by default. Looks impressive (to outsiders) but feels awkward. For what it's worth, my two languages were Ancient Greek and Latin (I went on to study Classics in graduate school), so apparently, you wrote your comment just for me.
- mturmon 15y ago
  I knew a German lit student and looked at his summer reading list (to prepare for grad school). It contained about 100 books, and he aimed to grind through a substantial fraction of them that summer. I read a lot (back then), but not at that level. That was one of the experiences, besides the time I took French and had my ass handed to me by people who were also simultaneously studying other languages, that brought home to me the linguistic workload that can be part of a humanities degree.