Hi Forafolks --
I'm sitting in my basement thinking about next fall, when I'll be teaching two sections of my department's MA-level seminar in communication theory. I want to talk about the art of writing, among other things, and I've begun collecting essays (mostly op-ed type pieces) about bad writing in the humanities. You know the genre -- thinly disguised accusations of bad faith by authors who think jargon is really some form of magical incantation meant to make the scholar (or "scholar") look smart. The Bad Writing Contest (http://www.denisdutton.com/bad_writing.htm) is a good example.
Anyway, my collection of articles is a bit haphazard, so I was wondering whether you have any suggestions. What are your favorite screeds against bad writing?
Thanks!
(Oh, and I've just noticed -- this is my 100th post on the new fora. Seems like I post more often than on the old fora. I think it's because to read the fora, I have to be logged in, which makes posting less of a hassle.)
Not related to academic writing, but the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction award brings up some gems
https://literaryreview.co.uk/bad-sex-in-fiction-award
Likewise the sub Reddit "Men Writing Women" (https://www.reddit.com/r/menwritingwomen/)
Quote from: bacardiandlime on May 05, 2020, 03:04:19 PM
Not related to academic writing, but the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction award brings up some gems
https://literaryreview.co.uk/bad-sex-in-fiction-award
Likewise the sub Reddit "Men Writing Women" (https://www.reddit.com/r/menwritingwomen/)
Wow on both counts.
There were a series of hoax-papers which made the humanities look bad.
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-real-fake-hoodwinks-journals.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
Not sure if this is what you are looking for but does point out the ridiculousness of certain types of scholarly writing.
The Sokal affair is inescapable, although for some reason, I hadn't thought of it in this context. It seems obvious, now that you point it out.
I just gave a student a D+ on an essay that had about C content because they were clearly idolizing this sort of writing. For example, at one point in a discussion of nature vs. nurture they talked about 'dilatory' genetic changes during evolution. Then they complained to the course convenor, because 'I only use words that I feel are apt in the context of the argument I am making'. Uh-huh. Your feelings don't make it so.
Quote from: ergative on May 05, 2020, 10:33:36 PM
I just gave a student a D+ on an essay that had about C content because they were clearly idolizing this sort of writing. For example, at one point in a discussion of nature vs. nurture they talked about 'dilatory' genetic changes during evolution. Then they complained to the course convenor, because 'I only use words that I feel are apt in the context of the argument I am making'. Uh-huh. Your feelings don't make it so.
I'm finding it's fine line to walk. On the one hand, I want my students to be able to decipher the authors who adopt this style (many of whom do so for specific reasons). In effect, I plan to defend the style but, at the same time, tell my students to avoid it!
I'm with you on the student you describe here, though. I, also, use only words I feel are apt in the context of the argument. The trick is knowing which words are, in fact, apt.
Some CanCon (although he's also supposed to be a social scientist, but, well.): Jordan Peterson. You could pair a few passages (if anyone's at all mathematically inclined, the things he says about Gödel's incompleteness proofs are... just... so, so, so wrong; but otherwise, it's all from the humanities' erstwhile dabbling with Freud, Jung, and Campbell) with this fantastic takedown (https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve) from Current Affairs.
Some great things have been written on the analytic-continental divide in philosophy, which mostly just tracks writing style (both of which are perfectly legitimate, although one is the kind that's characteristic of the "humanities", and one is not). And, to be clear, the writing style is completely different (comparing contemporary excerpts would probably be a very fun exercise for Master's students). There's lots out there, and I'm sure there's better stuff than what I'm about to link to, but some places to start might be: Gary Gutting in the NYT (https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/bridging-the-analytic-continental-divide/), Brian Leiter on the PhilosophyBites podcast (https://philosophybites.com/2011/12/brian-leiter-on-the-analyticcontinental-distinction.html), Leiter and commentators on his blog back in 2005 (https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/11/analytic_and_co.html), and William Blattner responding to Leiter (https://faculty.georgetown.edu/blattnew/contanalytic.html).
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 06, 2020, 12:03:16 PM
Some CanCon (although he's also supposed to be a social scientist, but, well.): Jordan Peterson. You could pair a few passages (if anyone's at all mathematically inclined, the things he says about Gödel's incompleteness proofs are... just... so, so, so wrong; but otherwise, it's all from the humanities' erstwhile dabbling with Freud, Jung, and Campbell) with this fantastic takedown (https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve) from Current Affairs.
Shudder. (I'm curious about the Gödel, though. I absolutely devoured
Gödel, Escher, and Bach in high school, which likely means I missed some of the subtler points.) I'm not sure I have the stomach for Peterson, though.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 06, 2020, 12:03:16 PM
Some great things have been written on the analytic-continental divide in philosophy, which mostly just tracks writing style (both of which are perfectly legitimate, although one is the kind that's characteristic of the "humanities", and one is not). And, to be clear, the writing style is completely different (comparing contemporary excerpts would probably be a very fun exercise for Master's students). There's lots out there, and I'm sure there's better stuff than what I'm about to link to, but some places to start might be: Gary Gutting in the NYT (https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/bridging-the-analytic-continental-divide/), Brian Leiter on the PhilosophyBites podcast (https://philosophybites.com/2011/12/brian-leiter-on-the-analyticcontinental-distinction.html), Leiter and commentators on his blog back in 2005 (https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/11/analytic_and_co.html), and William Blattner responding to Leiter (https://faculty.georgetown.edu/blattnew/contanalytic.html).
That's an angle I hadn't thought of, although it makes sense. I read a lot of continental philosophy (my background is in cultural studies, but going back further, literature) and can tell the BS from the not-BS. Well, some of the time, if it's an area I'm well read in (phenomenology, philosophy of language, hermeneutics). The difference in style with respect to analytical philosophy is useful for what it demonstrates about epistemology, evidence, claims, warrants, etc., in addition to readability.
http://bocktherobber.com/2010/05/post-modernism-generator/
Quote from: traductio on May 06, 2020, 12:13:08 PM
Shudder. (I'm curious about the Gödel, though. I absolutely devoured Gödel, Escher, and Bach in high school, which likely means I missed some of the subtler points.) I'm not sure I have the stomach for Peterson, though.
Just for funsies:
Quote from: JPetes, Maps of Meaning p. 189
A moral system – a system of culture – necessarily shares features in common with other systems. The most fundamental of the shared features of systems was identified by Kurt Godel. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem demonstrated that any internally consistent and logical system of propositions must necessarily be predicated upon assumptions that cannot be proved from within the confines of that system. The philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn – specifically discussing the progress of science – described similar implicit-presumption-ridden systems as paradigmatic. Explicitly scientific paradigmatic systems – the focus of Kuhn's attention – are concerned with the prediction and control of events whose existence can be verified, in a particular formal manner, and offer "model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners."376 Pre-experimental thinking – which primarily means moral thinking [ thinking about the meaning or significance of events (objects and behaviors)] – also appears necessarily characterized by paradigmatic structure.
Also for funsies, from his Twitter feed (apparently; I don't do the twittering):
QuoteProof itself, of any sort, is impossible, without an axiom (as Godel proved). Thus faith in God is a prerequisite for all proof.
Quote from: traductio on May 05, 2020, 08:35:12 PM
The Sokal affair is inescapable, although for some reason, I hadn't thought of it in this context. It seems obvious, now that you point it out.
The Sokal affair and the "grievance studies" affair illustrate the fact that this kind of writing is actually
rewarded in certain fields. (The number of articles that got accepted in the latter indicates how widely accepted it is.)
I don't think Sokal's paper is an example of bad writing. It's an example of satire, where the satire looks just like the non-satire, so that it's impossible to tell the difference.
Quote from: dismalist on May 06, 2020, 01:34:02 PM
I don't think Sokal's paper is an example of bad writing. It's an example of satire, where the satire looks just like the non-satire, so that it's impossible to tell the difference.
If the satire and the original can't be distinguished, then the original
is bad writing. Think of the
Onion pieces that people have passed on thinking they were real. It happens becuase the sources being parodied are doing things like over-dramatising or over-simplifying. A thoughtful, balanced presentation wouldn't be fodder for parody.
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 06, 2020, 01:53:07 PM
If the satire and the original can't be distinguished, then the original is bad writing. Think of the Onion pieces that people have passed on thinking they were real. It happens becuase the sources being parodied are doing things like over-dramatising or over-simplifying. A thoughtful, balanced presentation wouldn't be fodder for parody.
That doesn't seem right. There are a few different lessons you could draw from being unable to determine which of two texts is the satire, and which not (I'm assuming they're
distinguishable, since otherwise they're
identical, and that's a whole other kettle of fish). I'll grant that one plausible conclusion is that the original is poorly written. Another is that the satire is poorly written. Yet another is that the satire accidentally or incidentally says something of genuine value (and, thus, is rather a bad satire).
There are different things someone might mean by 'is good writing'. Here are at least two of them: (1) you might mean that the quality of the prose, considered by itself, is high (or low, for 'bad' writing), or (2) you might mean that the argument being advanced is compelling or of high quality, the story engaging, etc. Those two things can come apart. Indeed, they often do in student writing--hell, they often do in professional articles, too. Most of the arguments I read in my field are compelling, but the quality of writing is variable and sometimes pretty poor.
More generally, I'm not convinced that satire reliably tracks quality of writing. I'm not sure it reliably tracks quality of argumentation, either, but that case seems more plausible to me. And that's just because it seems to me that satire can shine an improving light on just about any vice, not just poor writing. Consider Austen's
Northanger Abbey, which just about everyone agrees is a satire of the Gothic novel. But Gothic novels aren't necessarily bad pieces of writing (nor, indeed, are they necessarily bad novels!). To satirize something you need to be able to find fault in it, but that doesn't entail that your criticism is fair or true, or that the original source is bunkum.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 06, 2020, 03:53:39 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 06, 2020, 01:53:07 PM
If the satire and the original can't be distinguished, then the original is bad writing. Think of the Onion pieces that people have passed on thinking they were real. It happens becuase the sources being parodied are doing things like over-dramatising or over-simplifying. A thoughtful, balanced presentation wouldn't be fodder for parody.
That doesn't seem right. There are a few different lessons you could draw from being unable to determine which of two texts is the satire, and which not (I'm assuming they're distinguishable, since otherwise they're identical, and that's a whole other kettle of fish). I'll grant that one plausible conclusion is that the original is poorly written. Another is that the satire is poorly written. Yet another is that the satire accidentally or incidentally says something of genuine value (and, thus, is rather a bad satire).
There are different things someone might mean by 'is good writing'. Here are at least two of them: (1) you might mean that the quality of the prose, considered by itself, is high (or low, for 'bad' writing), or (2) you might mean that the argument being advanced is compelling or of high quality, the story engaging, etc. Those two things can come apart. Indeed, they often do in student writing--hell, they often do in professional articles, too. Most of the arguments I read in my field are compelling, but the quality of writing is variable and sometimes pretty poor.
More generally, I'm not convinced that satire reliably tracks quality of writing. I'm not sure it reliably tracks quality of argumentation, either, but that case seems more plausible to me. And that's just because it seems to me that satire can shine an improving light on just about any vice, not just poor writing. Consider Austen's Northanger Abbey, which just about everyone agrees is a satire of the Gothic novel. But Gothic novels aren't necessarily bad pieces of writing (nor, indeed, are they necessarily bad novels!). To satirize something you need to be able to find fault in it, but that doesn't entail that your criticism is fair or true, or that the original source is bunkum.
What's interesting to me about the Sokal affair is the moral panic it caused. Well, moral panics
au pluriel, among those who equate capital-t Theory with "bad writing" (so, Sokal, it would seem) and among those who defend the complexity of thought that generates what others see as "bad writing." I'm collapsing a lot of categories here -- "bad writing" means something different in each of the two cases ("pretentious nonsense" in the first case, "appropriate or necessary complexity" in the other). "Theory" and "complexity" and "thought" are also all likely to evoke very different ideas for members of each camp. And it's also clearly the case that some people write in complex ways because they have the analytical chops to do it, and some because they're inept.
The pedagogical value, for me at least, is the discussion that addresses the moral panic. I want my students to write clearly. For that matter, I want them to
think clearly, a process that's intertwined with writing.
(And Parasaurolophus, your middle paragraph made me think of today's xkcd (https://xkcd.com/2303/).)
Quote from: dismalist on May 06, 2020, 01:34:02 PM
I don't think Sokal's paper is an example of bad writing. It's an example of satire, where the satire looks just like the non-satire, so that it's impossible to tell the difference.
I don't think it was satire.
I think it was a sting operation.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 06, 2020, 05:08:12 PM
Quote from: dismalist on May 06, 2020, 01:34:02 PM
I don't think Sokal's paper is an example of bad writing. It's an example of satire, where the satire looks just like the non-satire, so that it's impossible to tell the difference.
I don't think it was satire.
I think it was a sting operation.
I would agree. Same goes for the grievance studies articles.
How this relates to
bad writing is that in these cases, having the "correct" ideological stance and using lots of dense jargon was enough to be accepted. It's much like how Trump manges to be accepted by Christian conservatives; he has the "correct" ideological stance, and uses the right jargon, so it doesn't matter whether what he says is true, or even makes sense.
Writing which is evaluated more on its ideology than its rationality isn't scholarship; it's propaganda.
Which raises the question of whether propaganda can be good
writing regardless of its message......
Does Thomas Friedman count as humanities?
Quote from: spork on May 06, 2020, 06:09:32 PM
Does Thomas Friedman count as humanities?
The reporter?
Though I have an ax to grind with the author on account of that time she walked over to my table and took the bottle of wine without saying a word, this piece is excellent: https://observer.com/2015/11/dancing-with-professors-the-trouble-with-academic-prose/
Quote from: spork on May 06, 2020, 06:09:32 PM
Does Thomas Friedman count as humanities?
The "I was speaking to my cab driver the other day in Addis Ababa...." genre?
Quote from: larryc on May 06, 2020, 11:00:59 PM
Though I have an ax to grind with the author on account of that time she walked over to my table and took the bottle of wine without saying a word, this piece is excellent: https://observer.com/2015/11/dancing-with-professors-the-trouble-with-academic-prose/
That one wins extra points for the Lewis Carroll references.
(On a completely unrelated note, LarryC, I dreamt a few nights ago that we met. You were a Sesame Street muppet with a very large C pinned to your shirt.)
Quote from: traductio on May 07, 2020, 06:01:50 AM
You were a Sesame Street muppet with a very large C pinned to your shirt.
That is how Larry has dressed every time I have met him.
In my world, Gödel, Escher, Bach is considered a hot mess and a masterpiece of terrible writing.
Quote from: bibliothecula on May 07, 2020, 09:18:44 AM
In my world, Gödel, Escher, Bach is considered a hot mess and a masterpiece of terrible writing.
Won the Pulitzer. I'd do that kind of bad writing if I could.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 07, 2020, 09:42:22 AM
Quote from: bibliothecula on May 07, 2020, 09:18:44 AM
In my world, Gödel, Escher, Bach is considered a hot mess and a masterpiece of terrible writing.
Won the Pulitzer. I'd do that kind of bad writing if I could.
I can't think of a better illustration of the point the author of the article was making.
Quote from: bibliothecula on May 07, 2020, 09:18:44 AM
In my world, Gödel, Escher, Bach is considered a hot mess and a masterpiece of terrible writing.
Like I said, I read it in high school (20+ years ago), so my memory of it is limited. My tastes have also evolved. I wonder what I'd think of it now.
I have a cousin with a PhD in brainology----he's a well-respected neuroscientist and a professor in a medical school----and I tried to read one of his published articles and found it completely incomprehensible, with these long, loopy, circuitous sentences densely packed with jargon (most of which contained words with 14 to 16 letters, I swear) that I had never seen before in my life. I asked him to explain it to me and he did, which cleared up nothing.
In his case, however, I think the incomprehensible nature of his writing was simply the nature of expert writing for neuroscience.
I've always wondered if the humanities scholars, who actually have interesting things to say, felt like they needed their own argot.
Anyone not a physicist have any idea what "Let a system of plane waves of light, referred to the coordinate system (r, y, z), possess the energy £; let the direction of the ray angle a with the x-axis. Now suppose that the labelled wavefront reached A at an instant of time t and let OA = r" means?
I've often wondered about, but never been interested enough to pursue, the idea that the humanities felt it needed to compete with the sciences, and so the elder, accessible scholarship-style of Tolkien and Cleanth Brookes had to give way to the sorts of pseudo-scientific discourse we see in Harold Bloom or Judith Butler.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 07, 2020, 12:31:58 PM
Anyone not a physicist have any idea what "Let a system of plane waves of light, referred to the coordinate system (r, y, z), possess the energy £; let the direction of the ray angle a with the x-axis. Now suppose that the labelled wavefront reached A at an instant of time t and let OA = r" means?
Philosophers write like this all the time. It's normal for us because of our background in formal logic, and because journals and referees reward logic-chopping. So, even if you aren't formalizing stuff, it's often pragmatically useful to give the appearance of formal structure. Grad students are often taught to model their writing this way. The advantage is that it's not hard to see what's being done by such sentences at a meta-level, even if the actual content eludes you.
On the other hand, it's mostly unnecessary (for us, anyway) and it makes for tedious reading. The really great writers in the field don't usually resort to it unless they're doing properly formal work, and even then, they'll do a great job of guiding you through verbally. But plenty of people in the field are brill, but horrid writers; they tend to resort to this sort of thing a lot.
(Logic and logicians are a little different. I don't begrudge them their formalisms or dull sentences; I'm too busy struggling to follow along!)
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 07, 2020, 01:10:19 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 07, 2020, 12:31:58 PM
Anyone not a physicist have any idea what "Let a system of plane waves of light, referred to the coordinate system (r, y, z), possess the energy £; let the direction of the ray angle a with the x-axis. Now suppose that the labelled wavefront reached A at an instant of time t and let OA = r" means?
Philosophers write like this all the time. It's normal for us because of our background in formal logic, and because journals and referees reward logic-chopping. So, even if you aren't formalizing stuff, it's often pragmatically useful to give the appearance of formal structure. Grad students are often taught to model their writing this way. The advantage is that it's not hard to see what's being done by such sentences at a meta-level, even if the actual content eludes you.
On the other hand, it's mostly unnecessary (for us, anyway) and it makes for tedious reading. The really great writers in the field don't usually resort to it unless they're doing properly formal work, and even then, they'll do a great job of guiding you through verbally. But plenty of people in the field are brill, but horrid writers; they tend to resort to this sort of thing a lot.
(Logic and logicians are a little different. I don't begrudge them their formalisms or dull sentences; I'm too busy struggling to follow along!)
I used to be fascinated by the bridge column in the newspaper. (I don't play bridge.) Grammatically correct sentences of common English words, but that are utterly meaningless to people like me who don't play bridge. Seriously, if I were a spy having pass on secret information through public channels that's how I'd do it. Maybe that's what it is now. I don't actually
know if anyone reads those columns......
Quote from: bacardiandlime on May 07, 2020, 03:57:52 AM
Quote from: spork on May 06, 2020, 06:09:32 PM
Does Thomas Friedman count as humanities?
The "I was speaking to my cab driver the other day in Addis Ababa...." genre?
Yes. Amazing critique at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090221090340/http:/nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html (http://web.archive.org/web/20090221090340/http:/nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html).
Quote from: marshwiggle on May 07, 2020, 01:18:11 PM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on May 07, 2020, 01:10:19 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 07, 2020, 12:31:58 PM
Anyone not a physicist have any idea what "Let a system of plane waves of light, referred to the coordinate system (r, y, z), possess the energy £; let the direction of the ray angle a with the x-axis. Now suppose that the labelled wavefront reached A at an instant of time t and let OA = r" means?
Philosophers write like this all the time. It's normal for us because of our background in formal logic, and because journals and referees reward logic-chopping. So, even if you aren't formalizing stuff, it's often pragmatically useful to give the appearance of formal structure. Grad students are often taught to model their writing this way. The advantage is that it's not hard to see what's being done by such sentences at a meta-level, even if the actual content eludes you.
On the other hand, it's mostly unnecessary (for us, anyway) and it makes for tedious reading. The really great writers in the field don't usually resort to it unless they're doing properly formal work, and even then, they'll do a great job of guiding you through verbally. But plenty of people in the field are brill, but horrid writers; they tend to resort to this sort of thing a lot.
(Logic and logicians are a little different. I don't begrudge them their formalisms or dull sentences; I'm too busy struggling to follow along!)
I used to be fascinated by the bridge column in the newspaper. (I don't play bridge.) Grammatically correct sentences of common English words, but that are utterly meaningless to people like me who don't play bridge. Seriously, if I were a spy having pass on secret information through public channels that's how I'd do it. Maybe that's what it is now. I don't actually know if anyone reads those columns......
I used to read the fashion section of the
Toronto Star (I lived in Toronto) for the exact seem reason. Take any three words in a row, and I understood them. But 10? No way. Plus, I loved the way the pictures seemed loaded with forms of signification I simply couldn't grasp.
Quote from: traductio on May 07, 2020, 06:01:50 AM
Quote from: larryc on May 06, 2020, 11:00:59 PM
Though I have an ax to grind with the author on account of that time she walked over to my table and took the bottle of wine without saying a word, this piece is excellent: https://observer.com/2015/11/dancing-with-professors-the-trouble-with-academic-prose/
That one wins extra points for the Lewis Carroll references.
(On a completely unrelated note, LarryC, I dreamt a few nights ago that we met. You were a Sesame Street muppet with a very large C pinned to your shirt.)
Lewis Carrol reference? She actually did take my wine!
And I only dress that way for special occasions like when Bacardi and Lime comes to town.
When I was in grad school most of the profs in our department (history) didn't stand for thuddingly "academic" prose. They encouraged us to write clearly. We were told to avoid "clanking machinery" in our writing.
Many years later, when I was going for my professional MA as a librarian, I was actually admonished to make my machinery clank. So I did. I guess there can be such a thing as writing too well in some fields.
Quote from: apl68 on May 08, 2020, 08:50:35 AM
When I was in grad school most of the profs in our department (history) didn't stand for thuddingly "academic" prose. They encouraged us to write clearly. We were told to avoid "clanking machinery" in our writing.
Many years later, when I was going for my professional MA as a librarian, I was actually admonished to make my machinery clank. So I did. I guess there can be such a thing as writing too well in some fields.
I struggle with this when grading student essays. Sometimes I come across students whose writing is well on the way to incomprehensible sludge that the Journal of Postmodern Hermeneutical Applied Ethical Structuralism would be hard-put to wade through--and how am I supposed to grade that? It seems unfair to mark it down for unclarity in the same way that genuinely unskilled writing is marked down for, but on the other hand it is equally far away from the type of writing I'm trying to teach.
Quote from: ergative on May 11, 2020, 06:59:31 AM
I struggle with this when grading student essays. Sometimes I come across students whose writing is well on the way to incomprehensible sludge that the Journal of Postmodern Hermeneutical Applied Ethical Structuralism would be hard-put to wade through--and how am I supposed to grade that?
With great clarity, for one thing. Just because they have chosen a socially acceptable way to be unclear, they are still unclear and should learn not to do that.
Quote from: Hibush on May 11, 2020, 12:00:40 PM
Quote from: ergative on May 11, 2020, 06:59:31 AM
I struggle with this when grading student essays. Sometimes I come across students whose writing is well on the way to incomprehensible sludge that the Journal of Postmodern Hermeneutical Applied Ethical Structuralism would be hard-put to wade through--and how am I supposed to grade that?
With great clarity, for one thing. Just because they have chosen a socially acceptable way to be unclear, they are still unclear and should learn not to do that.
I agree. When I can't make heads or tales of a student's paper, I usually give them a chance to rewrite. (I give lots of second chances in my classes, especially if they serve a pedagogical purpose -- learning to write better is one such purpose.) If it comes back gibberish, though, then I treat it as such. John Cage can get away with that (have you seen his poetry?), but my students are not John Cage.
Quote from: ergative on May 11, 2020, 06:59:31 AM
the Journal of Postmodern Hermeneutical Applied Ethical Structuralism
That made my head hurt. (I've been reading a lot of Paul Ricoeur lately, for whom hermeneutics and structuralism are oil and water. I like the "applied ethics" part, but the "postmodern" muddies it a bit.)