Disqus - Latest Comments for andj

Re: University of Calgary plans to scrap 19 programs

andj — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 03:50:38 -0000

A BA in statistics? I'm pretty sure that modern finance and applied science wouldn't exist without the BSc in stats.

Re: University of Calgary plans to scrap 19 programs

andj — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 03:49:29 -0000

How is applied physics different from engineering (which is still offered)? How is economics "and society" different from economics (which is still offered)? Will students interested in chemical physics be unable to find relevant courses in chemical engineering or physical chemistry or plain old chemistry or physics? Bear in mind -- these are programs which no or few students are actually taking.

Re: http://meltzer.tumblr.com/post/405153032

andj — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:08:17 -0000

Hi Marisa,

I read your book in one setting the other day and really enjoyed it. I love many of the same bands from the 90s and had my own riot grrrl teenhood, but a little bit tempered because I live in Canada and before the internet it took a long time for anything to find me there. Your book did an excellent job of making the case for the continued significance of feminism in music, and it was a really welcome antidote to the sense I sometimes get that it all amounted to nothing and that everything has gone to shit.

Best,

Andrea

Re: editor's response

andj — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:53:08 -0000

Thanks for replying, Keith.
I don't mean to make any point about the respective class backgrounds about the Awl editors viz. the editors of N + 1. For one, I don't know anything about that, besides (as you point out) the difference in education. Obviously this is an important distinction, especially since a tendency to regard "difficulty" as the sine qua non of seriousness and meaning is something that universities tend to encourage.
What bothers me about Greif's article is that he seems to be complaining not just that people aren't doing the right things (lots and lots of sex uncoupled from reproduction), but that they're not FEELING the right things. Talk about repressive sentimentality! Is Greif's complaint really so different from someone galled by the success of, say, Eddie Murphy's The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps? After all, why DO people consume dreck when they could be taking the rarefied air of high culture? And why get married when they could be “accumulating strong experience”?
You say that Greif’s target is the bourgeoisie and, therefore, his article isn’t elitist. But it doesn’t read that way. Instead, it seems more of an attack on the mainstream from a position above and outside it. His targets are: people who value marriage, people who feel ambivalent about abortion, people who fear loneliness and instability. Such squares! If only they would quit letting their souls be deadened by their own boringness, then they could set about the serious business of passionate feeling!
Maybe I’m just being defensive, but a lot of people have complained about the “we” in this piece, and I suspect that’s because it so totally fails to be inclusive. I get the sense that most of the people who commented on this piece are probably also concerned with sexual freedom, so what’s got their shackles raised? Maybe it’s that no one wants to be hectored into reorganizing their affective bonds in order to meet some radical’s test of what’s “meaningful.”

Re: editor's response

andj — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:17:27 -0000

This dance is getting pretty familiar by now: n + 1 publishes something a little too self-serious, a little willfully dramatic. The Awl (formerly Gawker) mocks is overly pious tone. N + 1 rejoins with accusations of anti-intellectualism.

So where to start? With the substance of Mark Greif's argument? Or with the substance of the critique of it (because I do believe there's more to Tom Socca's complaint than merely a pose of incomprehension)?

It seems to me that things are turning on the issue of tone: Mark Greif's piece reads pretty much like something from grad school, Choire Sicha & Tom Socca sound like bloggers. And now, you're complaint is that their critique isn't "serious" enough. Underneath all this, isn't there something about class going on?

To be honest, I found "Repressive Sentimentality" grating, and not because I disagreed with it! Michael Warner's book, The Trouble with Normal, covered this ground in an interesting and illuminating way. But then, there's the problem of tone again... There's a "we" in use here that's set against "people," who aren't doing anything right: they watch the wrong TV, read blogs instead of journals, get married and register at Pottery Barn. Sure, "elitism" is a loaded term, often used to shut down legitimate debate. But it's also a real thing, and I can't help but see it here.