If you post on the OSDDP website about Apache and talk about projects you feel need to be done, you might have a few takers. We have classes focusing on Writing for the Computer Industry and others that are populated by CS students. We can't take on any new projects this semester, but if you post on the front page, our students will be able to consider Apache next semester.
bender
PU Tech Writing Instructor
I would say that my experience with postmodernism does have a clear political aim: dismantling those in power and intimidating those graduate students who believe in any established form of anything, from the safe distance provided by the ivory tower. The people I encounter who know Derrida, Fish, and knew Barthes really lean towards the idea that these men wrote to provoke thought. The people I encounter who read these men and use their writings are the ones who appear to have the political agenda.
I agree with what you are saying about Vizzini and losing sight of the problem (although I have not seen Princess Bride). Academics are mainly talk. We sit in our classrooms and at our conferences and mentally masturbate about shit (pardon me) that means nothing when put in to play. It's the theory verses practice debate. My experiences in graduate school have not been enough to indoctrinate me into an academic frame of mind - I keep getting in touble for asking my profs why I should care about xxxx or what xxxx has to do with anything in the real world. Part of what I see going on is ego, another part is that we are so amazed with ourselves that we don't bother to ask how we can help others - instead we would rather deconstruct those who are trying and show why they are failing, without getting out and failing ourselves.
These are the ramblings of a disillusioned PhD candidate (who can't spell). But, yes, I think those who teach pomo and fall in line with the use of the theories do have a political agenda. It is extreme left-winged, close-minded, propaganda -- and it is being fed to 18 year old college freshmen everyday. I cannot claim that postmodernism had any agenda, except to promote thought.
Oh, but postmodernism does acknowledge that there are priviledged readings of something - the readings that are accepted by society as a whole (society being the white, male, upper-middle class, educated individual). What postmodernism attempts to do is to illustrate/prove/uncover the idea that one reading is more true than another. However, postmodern critics vehemently and loudly protest the dominant class and do it through deconstruction and foucaultian readings of "texts".
Just two cents from a PhD candidate in Rhetoric, who can't wait to get out of academics.
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If you post on the OSDDP website about Apache and talk about projects you feel need to be done, you might have a few takers. We have classes focusing on Writing for the Computer Industry and others that are populated by CS students. We can't take on any new projects this semester, but if you post on the front page, our students will be able to consider Apache next semester. bender PU Tech Writing Instructor
I would say that my experience with postmodernism does have a clear political aim: dismantling those in power and intimidating those graduate students who believe in any established form of anything, from the safe distance provided by the ivory tower. The people I encounter who know Derrida, Fish, and knew Barthes really lean towards the idea that these men wrote to provoke thought. The people I encounter who read these men and use their writings are the ones who appear to have the political agenda. I agree with what you are saying about Vizzini and losing sight of the problem (although I have not seen Princess Bride). Academics are mainly talk. We sit in our classrooms and at our conferences and mentally masturbate about shit (pardon me) that means nothing when put in to play. It's the theory verses practice debate. My experiences in graduate school have not been enough to indoctrinate me into an academic frame of mind - I keep getting in touble for asking my profs why I should care about xxxx or what xxxx has to do with anything in the real world. Part of what I see going on is ego, another part is that we are so amazed with ourselves that we don't bother to ask how we can help others - instead we would rather deconstruct those who are trying and show why they are failing, without getting out and failing ourselves. These are the ramblings of a disillusioned PhD candidate (who can't spell). But, yes, I think those who teach pomo and fall in line with the use of the theories do have a political agenda. It is extreme left-winged, close-minded, propaganda -- and it is being fed to 18 year old college freshmen everyday. I cannot claim that postmodernism had any agenda, except to promote thought.
Oh, but postmodernism does acknowledge that there are priviledged readings of something - the readings that are accepted by society as a whole (society being the white, male, upper-middle class, educated individual). What postmodernism attempts to do is to illustrate/prove/uncover the idea that one reading is more true than another. However, postmodern critics vehemently and loudly protest the dominant class and do it through deconstruction and foucaultian readings of "texts". Just two cents from a PhD candidate in Rhetoric, who can't wait to get out of academics.