Wow. The stupid, it BURNS!!
May. 5th, 2008 05:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
patgundDartmouth's 'Hostile' Environment
"Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of "French narrative theory" that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will "name names."
The trauma was so intense that in March Ms. Venkatesan quit Dartmouth and decamped for Northwestern. She declined to comment for this piece, pointing instead to the multiple interviews she conducted with the campus press."
But wait, it gets better:
"Ms. Venkatesan's scholarly specialty is "science studies," which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, "teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth." She continues: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."
The agenda of Ms. Venkatesan's seminar, then, was to "problematize" technology and the life sciences. Students told me that most of the "problems" owed to her impenetrable lectures and various eruptions when students indicated skepticism of literary theory. She counters that such skepticism was "intolerant of ideas" and "questioned my knowledge in very inappropriate ways." Ms. Venkatesan, who is of South Asian descent, also alleges that critics were motivated by racism, though it is unclear why.
After a winter of discontent, the snapping point came while Ms. Venkatesan was lecturing on "ecofeminism," which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out. One student took issue, and reasonably so – actually, empirically so. But "these weren't thoughtful statements," Ms. Venkatesan protests.
"They were irrational." The class thought otherwise. Following what she calls the student's "diatribe," several of his classmates applauded.
Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was "fascist demagoguery." Then, after consulting a physician about "intellectual distress," she cancelled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation."
On edit: There's more, and she seems to be a fruitcake
http://www.ivygateblog.com/blog/tags/priya_venkatesan/
I love this comment from a student: "If Venkatesan followed through with her lawsuit the same way she followed through with grading our papers, no one would have had anything to worry about, "
Edit number two: Ph.D. in Lit from UC-San Diego. M.S. in Genetics from UC-Davis. Specialty is the "connection between molecular biology and French narrative theory"
Also, I suspect, batshit crazy.
"Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of "French narrative theory" that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will "name names."
The trauma was so intense that in March Ms. Venkatesan quit Dartmouth and decamped for Northwestern. She declined to comment for this piece, pointing instead to the multiple interviews she conducted with the campus press."
But wait, it gets better:
"Ms. Venkatesan's scholarly specialty is "science studies," which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, "teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth." She continues: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."
The agenda of Ms. Venkatesan's seminar, then, was to "problematize" technology and the life sciences. Students told me that most of the "problems" owed to her impenetrable lectures and various eruptions when students indicated skepticism of literary theory. She counters that such skepticism was "intolerant of ideas" and "questioned my knowledge in very inappropriate ways." Ms. Venkatesan, who is of South Asian descent, also alleges that critics were motivated by racism, though it is unclear why.
After a winter of discontent, the snapping point came while Ms. Venkatesan was lecturing on "ecofeminism," which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out. One student took issue, and reasonably so – actually, empirically so. But "these weren't thoughtful statements," Ms. Venkatesan protests.
"They were irrational." The class thought otherwise. Following what she calls the student's "diatribe," several of his classmates applauded.
Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was "fascist demagoguery." Then, after consulting a physician about "intellectual distress," she cancelled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation."
On edit: There's more, and she seems to be a fruitcake
http://www.ivygateblog.com/blog/tags/priya_venkatesan/
I love this comment from a student: "If Venkatesan followed through with her lawsuit the same way she followed through with grading our papers, no one would have had anything to worry about, "
Edit number two: Ph.D. in Lit from UC-San Diego. M.S. in Genetics from UC-Davis. Specialty is the "connection between molecular biology and French narrative theory"
Also, I suspect, batshit crazy.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-06 01:06 am (UTC)I found her book at Amazon
Date: 2008-05-06 03:29 am (UTC)http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082048699X/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_title
5.0 out of 5 stars Tongue-in-Cheek Academic Humor at its FINEST!, May 5, 2008
I picked up a used copy of this text, because I was absolutely intrigued by the concept: French Literature based on Biological Principles -- And the other way 'round, too!
Following all the forms of both Literary deconstructionist criticism as well as Scientific Peer-reviewed journals, one might actually think this was a serious work -- and indeed, the sheer volume of dense text only adds to the realism. Happily, the content of the text seems to be some remarkably well-disguised trippy-hippy post-modernist anti-establishment pseudo-feminist rant taken directly from protest speeches from the sixties.
Well Done! This deserves a place on your shelf alongside your bound volumes of The Journal of Improbable Research and other 'Mad Scientist' Jokebooks!
no subject
Date: 2008-05-06 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-06 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-06 07:38 am (UTC)This speaks volumes -- Certain components of UCSD's Lit Department have to be experienced to be believed. As a point on a CV, more than enough to offset any credibility to be derived from the genetics Masters from UCD.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-06 09:29 pm (UTC)While there are some indications that language is strongly influenced by biology, I am extremely dubious of her claim that one particular nation's literary conventions are influenced uniquely by biology. Contrary to popular stereotypes, I haven't seen any compelling evidence that the French are fundamentally different from the rest of the human race.
There is a small but measurable probability that she is an unsung genius, whose ideas will someday revolutionize both language and biology. However, the current evidence more strongly supports the idea that she is literally a mad scientist; even if she is "but mad north by northwest", it appears that the wind has not blown from the south in some time.