Classes so far
Apr. 4th, 2013 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaOK. I think I'm going to get very impatient with the Philosophy of Science course. Not because of the prof or the classmates! Well, maybe the undergrad classmates. It's weird; there are two lectures and then a grad seminar. This means we grads are kind of stuck with all the basic 101 questions and statements the undergrads make, like, "science is about making progress" and LOL NO. I brought up the Tuskegee syphillis experiment and one of the undergrads was like "but now we have the knowledge that we gained from the experiment itself, and then we also have a new kind of knowledge of human relations" LOL WHAT NO.
The syllabus is also horrifyingly white and predominantly male (I count only one female name on this whole list)... apparently we're only doing "modern" science as has been shaped by Western European powers (but let's not mention that at all!!!!). This textbook that's an introduction to the philosophy of science is just........ I think it's very descriptive but oh my god do I ever want to punch walls. And we have to read Bacon's Aphorisms! Oh my god! I can only tolerate "B'AWW WORDS ARE HARD AND COMPLICATE UNDERSTANDING" this far... eventually I fucked off and decided to read Galileo instead. And you know? I'm quite sure the first scientists to work on optics were Arab? No, let's not mention that at all, it would diminish Galileo's genius.
I am going to be SO MUCH OVER DEAD WHITE DUDES than I have ever been before after this class!
The saving grace is that the professor is open to reading all sorts of other kinds of stuff, extra reading that aligns with the grad students' research interests. He's also a VERY good teacher, as in teaching style. My grad classmates also seem cool; we have a psych student, an anthro student, and a grad in the School of Education who's doing work on... aquariums? It's really neat. She's neat too. We also have someone who's not even registered at the uni sitting in, and two Philosophy students. Who. Wow. This brings my count of Philosophy Students I Have Met up to 3, and they are all dull people who... for some reason... do not like talking about their work? It makes me wonder why they're doing it in the first place. It's not even a case of "how can I explain my work to the layperson unfamiliar with my academic interests" there's just no enthusiasm at all. Maybe they'll open up though. Either way, the seminar should be loads of fun, and the professor is a lot of fun too.
My Directed Studies course with Dr. LR is, I think, going to be a challenge. She's SO OLD SCHOOL!!! We're doing work on Mind/Body dualism! I just.... cannot really grok how it is going to be relevant to my work. The texts are totally interesting, of course but I'm going to somehow ask her if I could think through what we're doing with performativity, and embodied performativity. She might say no, because it's not very science-y? The workload is really light though; she assigned me some books and told me to get through as much as possible as I could. She was pretty strong on her preference for a seminar paper--she's so old school she thinks in terms of "something to publish" at the end of it. Why is American academia so obsessed with getting in as many publications and conferences as much as possible? All it does is just make everybody fucking anxious as far as I can tell. Anyway, whatever. We get along and I'm sure as long as she keeps her hands off my dissertation, I'll be fine.
The idea for incorporating performativity came from the SEA Lit class, which I think is going to be a hoot. I always worry that Dr. HM is going to be old-school disinterested in politics and whatnot, and I am theory-heavy while he is trained as a text-based philologist, but honestly he is SO EASY to get along with and we always have good chats. We're reading a shitload of really cool old Malay / Malaysian literature which I'd never even heard of in school and wish I did. We're also doing some colonial literature ABOUT Malaya which I think is going to be really interesting (I did not know that Conrad wrote on Malaya too). I'm pretty sure he understands that Malay literature has just about absolutely no bearing on my dissertation, BUT definitely a hella lot on my ambitions beyond academia. It feels like he's bending over backwards to help me do SF even though that is seriously just not one of his fields at all.
AND my classmate for that class (yeah it's just the two of us) does Indonesian!! So I asked if we could do stuff in the original Malay / Indonesian since we ALL can read the texts in their original languages anyway! I AM EXCITE. (She is also white and blond and I am tickled. She seems very quiet, but nice. I'm afraid of stone-rolling over her.) It was so awesome today; we basically just shot the shit and our conversation ran from the actual readings and anime and translation issues and future plans and other departments and politics and aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh. Makes me want to cook some nasi lemak for an even more leisurely kopitiam feel.
I did discover that there's a "Science Fiction Cinema" class in Media Studies, which I'm kind of pissed off about; if I'd known, I would have taken it, because it would have fulfilled two slots in my requirements list. I may have missed a bullet though; the prof assigned "The Windup Girl" as one of the texts... this I saw in the bookstore when I went to buy my philosophy textbooks. I may email him to see if he'll be repeating the course. I'm also going to get in touch with relevant departments to find out what their planned schedule is for the next year, so I'm better armed with what classes I could take. Since I won't be the only SF student next year, it'll be really worth my while to get together a list of potential courses we can all take to fulfill requirements.
In the meantime, Dr. LR asked me to write the grad advisor and chair about the SF Track, if I feel strongly about keeping it. I do, but I really want to have its requirements changed so it's more flexible for students who, like me, AREN'T into hard science and science fiction that's really just about science stuff. What I do is, I guess, academically called "speculative fiction" (Nalo and I had a conversation about terms the other day; she uses "science fiction" as a blanket term to also mean fantasy and horror and everything else) and I imagine, for those of us doing more fantasy stuff, courses on mythology and history are more important than courses on science specifically. So... yeah, I'm going to think up why we need a separate SF track and not just an interdisciplinary one (which the department does have; they are thinking of assimilating the SF track into the interdisciplinary one if we can't find a compelling reason for them to stay separate). Given that the grad advisor does manga and anime, I think she'll understand where I'm coming from on this.
On the medical front because apparently I am forgetful as fuck, I tried to order birth control since I have my period this week? And I was told, nope, you have your prescription for the month, come back WAY later and I'm like, whut. And now that I think about it, I DID get my prescription earlier for this month so I wouldn't have to scramble.
........ except I kept it in the paper bag and I thought I didn't need it anymore and I think I accidentally threw away the prescription medicine inside. /o\ I mean, I hope not and it's just laying around my apartment somewhere?? But I really cannot think of anywhere else I would have put it!
AUGH.
Oh well.
The syllabus is also horrifyingly white and predominantly male (I count only one female name on this whole list)... apparently we're only doing "modern" science as has been shaped by Western European powers (but let's not mention that at all!!!!). This textbook that's an introduction to the philosophy of science is just........ I think it's very descriptive but oh my god do I ever want to punch walls. And we have to read Bacon's Aphorisms! Oh my god! I can only tolerate "B'AWW WORDS ARE HARD AND COMPLICATE UNDERSTANDING" this far... eventually I fucked off and decided to read Galileo instead. And you know? I'm quite sure the first scientists to work on optics were Arab? No, let's not mention that at all, it would diminish Galileo's genius.
I am going to be SO MUCH OVER DEAD WHITE DUDES than I have ever been before after this class!
The saving grace is that the professor is open to reading all sorts of other kinds of stuff, extra reading that aligns with the grad students' research interests. He's also a VERY good teacher, as in teaching style. My grad classmates also seem cool; we have a psych student, an anthro student, and a grad in the School of Education who's doing work on... aquariums? It's really neat. She's neat too. We also have someone who's not even registered at the uni sitting in, and two Philosophy students. Who. Wow. This brings my count of Philosophy Students I Have Met up to 3, and they are all dull people who... for some reason... do not like talking about their work? It makes me wonder why they're doing it in the first place. It's not even a case of "how can I explain my work to the layperson unfamiliar with my academic interests" there's just no enthusiasm at all. Maybe they'll open up though. Either way, the seminar should be loads of fun, and the professor is a lot of fun too.
My Directed Studies course with Dr. LR is, I think, going to be a challenge. She's SO OLD SCHOOL!!! We're doing work on Mind/Body dualism! I just.... cannot really grok how it is going to be relevant to my work. The texts are totally interesting, of course but I'm going to somehow ask her if I could think through what we're doing with performativity, and embodied performativity. She might say no, because it's not very science-y? The workload is really light though; she assigned me some books and told me to get through as much as possible as I could. She was pretty strong on her preference for a seminar paper--she's so old school she thinks in terms of "something to publish" at the end of it. Why is American academia so obsessed with getting in as many publications and conferences as much as possible? All it does is just make everybody fucking anxious as far as I can tell. Anyway, whatever. We get along and I'm sure as long as she keeps her hands off my dissertation, I'll be fine.
The idea for incorporating performativity came from the SEA Lit class, which I think is going to be a hoot. I always worry that Dr. HM is going to be old-school disinterested in politics and whatnot, and I am theory-heavy while he is trained as a text-based philologist, but honestly he is SO EASY to get along with and we always have good chats. We're reading a shitload of really cool old Malay / Malaysian literature which I'd never even heard of in school and wish I did. We're also doing some colonial literature ABOUT Malaya which I think is going to be really interesting (I did not know that Conrad wrote on Malaya too). I'm pretty sure he understands that Malay literature has just about absolutely no bearing on my dissertation, BUT definitely a hella lot on my ambitions beyond academia. It feels like he's bending over backwards to help me do SF even though that is seriously just not one of his fields at all.
AND my classmate for that class (yeah it's just the two of us) does Indonesian!! So I asked if we could do stuff in the original Malay / Indonesian since we ALL can read the texts in their original languages anyway! I AM EXCITE. (She is also white and blond and I am tickled. She seems very quiet, but nice. I'm afraid of stone-rolling over her.) It was so awesome today; we basically just shot the shit and our conversation ran from the actual readings and anime and translation issues and future plans and other departments and politics and aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh. Makes me want to cook some nasi lemak for an even more leisurely kopitiam feel.
I did discover that there's a "Science Fiction Cinema" class in Media Studies, which I'm kind of pissed off about; if I'd known, I would have taken it, because it would have fulfilled two slots in my requirements list. I may have missed a bullet though; the prof assigned "The Windup Girl" as one of the texts... this I saw in the bookstore when I went to buy my philosophy textbooks. I may email him to see if he'll be repeating the course. I'm also going to get in touch with relevant departments to find out what their planned schedule is for the next year, so I'm better armed with what classes I could take. Since I won't be the only SF student next year, it'll be really worth my while to get together a list of potential courses we can all take to fulfill requirements.
In the meantime, Dr. LR asked me to write the grad advisor and chair about the SF Track, if I feel strongly about keeping it. I do, but I really want to have its requirements changed so it's more flexible for students who, like me, AREN'T into hard science and science fiction that's really just about science stuff. What I do is, I guess, academically called "speculative fiction" (Nalo and I had a conversation about terms the other day; she uses "science fiction" as a blanket term to also mean fantasy and horror and everything else) and I imagine, for those of us doing more fantasy stuff, courses on mythology and history are more important than courses on science specifically. So... yeah, I'm going to think up why we need a separate SF track and not just an interdisciplinary one (which the department does have; they are thinking of assimilating the SF track into the interdisciplinary one if we can't find a compelling reason for them to stay separate). Given that the grad advisor does manga and anime, I think she'll understand where I'm coming from on this.
On the medical front because apparently I am forgetful as fuck, I tried to order birth control since I have my period this week? And I was told, nope, you have your prescription for the month, come back WAY later and I'm like, whut. And now that I think about it, I DID get my prescription earlier for this month so I wouldn't have to scramble.
........ except I kept it in the paper bag and I thought I didn't need it anymore and I think I accidentally threw away the prescription medicine inside. /o\ I mean, I hope not and it's just laying around my apartment somewhere?? But I really cannot think of anywhere else I would have put it!
AUGH.
Oh well.
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Date: 2013-04-04 08:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-05 06:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-05 06:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-05 07:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-05 03:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-05 06:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-05 06:42 am (UTC)So, I went to MIT, and I had my share of classes which covered Philosophy of Science in some way (I can think of two such classes that I took, and they were different from each other in content and format).
What I wanted to add was this:
Philosophy of Science can be a certain special kind of fail in and of itself, I think, on several different intersecting layers. The Eurocentrism of it, and erasing of PoC and women, is only part of the problem -- as you pointed out there are also meta-ideological problems, like the student who said that "science is about making progress." There are lots of assumptions which underlie the philosophy of science which might be interesting to study in their own right, but which have a tendency to never be questioned and examined, because they are either assumed to be universal, or to be universal to anyone who "matters" to the discussion.
Science dictates a set of beliefs about the "real" nature of reality and how to know it/learn about it. Where reality does not align with the ideology of science/scientism, that reality is erased, or explicitly labeled as "not true" or "not possible."
So for example, in Western culture, including science, there is a belief that all knowledge exists objectively, and that all of it can (at least in theory) be accessed, learned and used by anyone equally -- the person learning or doing it does not matter. But (as one example) I have read of traditions across the world which hold that certain knowledge (such as healing knowledge) is given by spirits to certain people, for use by those people, and if they were to try to tell others how they do things, their ability to heal (etc.) would be revoked. Since such knowledge falls outside "science," it becomes discounted (in theory or practice) as "not real," and then the racism, colonialism, etc. come into play to further stigmatize and marginalize such systems of knowledge, as well as the people who adhere to them and/or who are the recipients of such knowledge.
I do not recall ever learning in school, in any class, "philosophy of science" or not, that this "intrinsic fungibility of all knowledge (and the right of everyone to any and all knowledge" was the philosophical perspective that everyone was working from. I realized it on my own when I read about other systems of knowledge (outside of school). And then I realized how that philosophical belief supports colonialism and racism, e.g. white people feeling entitled to "secret Indian knowledge" and posing as Indians to try to get it for themselves -- or "for posterity, in the name of science."
"Oh noes, these people are dying out, and their language and their knowledge, too -- we have to preserve this knowledge for future generations before it's lost for good!" Which assumes that others are entitled to it in the first place, and assumes that the knowledge can even be passed from person to person (rather than only from spirit to person).
Because spirits "don't exist."
This is just one example -- many other assumptions would likely also remain assumed and unquestioned, such as an unspoken assumption that science is, if not the "one true way" to know about the universe, certainly the "best" way. (And everything else is "religion," which, what, no.)