Gayatri Spivak, Postmodernism and others
Kaberi Chakrabarty
Dasgupta <TXD...@psuvm.psu.edu> wrote:
>there'san antipathy toward humanities among educated middle and upper-middle
>class ? I don't know of ANY high-ranker in Secondary Board Examinations who
>did not go to Engineering, Medicine, or so called "Science" subjects. There is
>just one exception I can think of. Semanti Ghosh, daughter of poet Sankha Ghosh
>ranked among the top five and chose to study Humanities. Do you think it is
>solely due to a fear from a bleak enterpreneural future ?
>
Very likely. My father often tells me about how he wanted to study literature
when he was young, but his father made him study science. He appears to be-
lieve sincerely in the idea that, since he was forced to study something that
he didn't like in the beginning (and in which he was later very successful)
then his children will naturally study what he tells them to, without bother-
ing about whether they like it or not. I suspect strongly that this bias
towards the sciences is largely (though certainly not entirely) responsible
for the fact that most Second Generation Indians here have gone into those
fields ( in some cases, whether they liked it or not).
--
________________ _/-\________
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*
Joydeep Bhattacharya
separate threads needlessly!) which beats me, i.e. the difficulty of the
material that postmodernists study. What is so unbelievable about that?
Aren't the intricacies of post-graduate physics difficult to grasp for
someone specializing in English? And vice-versa. Most things written in
academic journals in Economics are well beyond anyone not in Economics.
Pick up an issue of Cahiers du Cinema (film studies), or Mind
(Philosophy) or Lancet (Medicine). If you are not atleast a PhD in that
subject, you are unlikely to follow the dicussion. The same is true for
what Ms. Spivak writes. Her fellow academics who have labored countless
years studying "po-mo" comprehend her writings mostly. It is IMO grossly
unfair to ask suggestive questions like " I wonder if the po-mo's have
anything intelligent to say...". I would brand such allegations as "bad
adda" quite unbecoming of the readers of both the SCB's. On another note
of discord, I see no reason why we should be discussing post-modernism
the subject in this newsgroup. Is it just because Ms. Spivak is a
Bengali? Some of the biggest names in Statistics today are Bengalis; pray
why leave Statistics out of this forum?
-Joydeep
=========================================================================
==
Joydeep Bhattacharya
Department of Economics
Cornell University
Ithaca NY 14853-7601
Phone (607) 256 2310
Fax (607) 255 2818
E-mail: jb...@cornell.edu
=========================================================================
==
Joydeep Bhattacharya
says...
[...]
>About Apratim and Naeem's questions on Arts and "Science", don't you
think that
>there'san antipathy toward humanities among educated middle and
upper-middle
>class ? I don't know of ANY high-ranker in Secondary Board Examinations
who
>did not go to Engineering, Medicine, or so called "Science" subjects.
There is
>just one exception I can think of. Semanti Ghosh, daughter of poet
Sankha Ghosh
>ranked among the top five and chose to study Humanities. Do you think it
is
>solely due to a fear from a bleak enterpreneural future ?
[...]
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Shoumyo Dasgupta.
Semanti's husband is another. There are many more current examples some
of whom I wont name (I know they read SCB). In general, many middle-class
Bangladeshis and Indians have gone on to achieve the highest academic
ranking in "humanities"; prominent examples of these can be found in
English, linguistics, statistics, economics, sociology,...I am positive
many of them were "high rankers" in the Madhyamik exams in Calcutta or
its equivalent. Not that it matters. Some just have a natural affinity
for the arts, others acquire it later on! The antipathy you mention is
entirely because of financial reasons. It may well be true that only
students from well-to-do families go into the arts streams; there is
*usually* a greater (eventual) financial security attached to the Science
streams.
-Joydeep
====================================================
Dasgupta
thought that there is SOME amount of high-brow attitude prevailing among the
educated middle-class regarding science and "arts", that not necessarily
reflect money parameters.
Zeeshan, I publicly apologise again for sounding patronizing. I include myself
among the un-initiated and the bewildered. It's just that I did find the
discussions on po-mo interesting AFTER going through the tortures, and I was
trying to motivate my scb friends to give it a seriuos shot.
Sincerely,
Shoumyo.
sayan bhattacharyya
Joydeep Bhattacharya <jb...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>There is one aspect of the discussion (which now is going on in six
>separate threads needlessly!) which beats me, i.e. the difficulty of the
>material that postmodernists study. What is so unbelievable about that?
>Aren't the intricacies of post-graduate physics difficult to grasp for
>someone specializing in English? And vice-versa.
I think that this reaction is understandable, because historically
academic writing in English __has__ been intelligible to the educated
layman. For example, Wordsworth and Coleridge's "Preface to the Lyrical
Ballads" is widely regarded as a milesone work in English critical theory.
It was published in the late 1700s/early 1800s, and it was perfectly
comprehensible to an educated person of that time. On the other hand,
Newton's "Principia", published roughly around the same time (maybe a
little earlier) was __not__ comprehensible to a person with a lay
education. Similarly, in the 1930s, the critical theory that was being
written by the dominant school of the day, namely the "new critics" (e.g.
F.R. Leavis, I.E. Richards) did not pose any comprehensibility problems
to the lay person whereas the 1930s work of Bohr or Schroedinger certainly
would have posed such problems to a non-physicist.
So historically people have a lot of expectations that scholarly work
in the humanities will be generally accessible, while that in the hard
sciences will not be so. (I am not saying whether this expectation is
justified).
>Pick up an issue of Cahiers du Cinema (film studies), or Mind
>(Philosophy) or Lancet (Medicine). If you are not atleast a PhD in that
>subject, you are unlikely to follow the dicussion.
I disagree at least on the point of Cahiers du Cinema. In 1994 I regularly
used to read Cahiers du Cinema at the library of the Alliance Francaise
in Calcutta, with enjoyment. I did have to use a dictionary, of course,
because I am not very fluent in French, but the _content_ never posed much
comprehensibility problems.
>of discord, I see no reason why we should be discussing post-modernism
>the subject in this newsgroup.
I agree. It is not appropriate to discuss this on s.c.b.
-Sayan.
Taranga Ghosh
>
> In article <4e71r4$d...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
> Joydeep Bhattacharya <jb...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> >Pick up an issue of Cahiers du Cinema (film studies), or Mind
> >(Philosophy) or Lancet (Medicine). If you are not atleast a PhD in that
> >subject, you are unlikely to follow the dicussion.
Lancet-ta MBBS holeo cholbe'.
> I agree. It is not appropriate to discuss this on s.c.b.
Charter-sharter notwithstanding, I think this subject is an ideal
conteen-er adda kind of topic and so we should carry on.
--
regards,
Taranga Ghosh
Indranil DasGupta
: There is one aspect of the discussion (which now is going on in six
: separate threads needlessly!) which beats me, i.e. the difficulty of the
: material that postmodernists study. What is so unbelievable about that?
: Aren't the intricacies of post-graduate physics difficult to grasp for
A very good question. Why indeed do people tend to single out
`philosophies' and leave out `sciences'?
:It is IMO grossly
: unfair to ask suggestive questions like " I wonder if the po-mo's have
: anything intelligent to say...". I would brand such allegations as "bad
: adda" quite unbecoming of the readers of both the SCB's.
I agree. Someone ought to show them that the apparent incoherence of
po-mo writings hide a deep and rational structure. In particular many
students of po-mo (Sayan-babu's friend for example) contribute to the
confusion by attributing "sinister" reasons for the apparent
incomprehensibility. That impression, above all, has to be neutralised
and countered.
Unfortunately there are few takers for the job, it seems. The
alt.postmodern faq which I read carefully and sincerely was no help at
all. The faq in the astronomy newsgroup on the other hand is quite
transparent even to laymen. If this situation persists for long then I
will be forced to conclude that post modernists themselves are at least
partially responsible for being "misunderstood".
For instance, if you ask a student of physics "what are the basic
questions physicists ask" you'll get an answer any layman can
understand. It's the answers to those questions that are hard. Not the
questions themselves.
I have asked a similar question about post modernism in this
ng. Tathagata has so far not offered any answers at all. Taranga has
tried valiantly. But as I see, the questions he says po-mos ask are not
at all different from what _any historian_ would ask. Furthermore I am
primarily interested in postmodernism's relation to the scientific
method. I'd like to know what questions do they ask regarding science
and the scientific method.
: On another note
: of discord, I see no reason why we should be discussing post-modernism
: the subject in this newsgroup. Is it just because Ms. Spivak is a
: Bengali? Some of the biggest names in Statistics today are Bengalis; pray
: why leave Statistics out of this forum?
My point of view is that as long as I don't see a reason why I shouldn't be
discussing a particular thing on scb, I would refrain from pressing the
brakes on the adda. Why should I expect everyone to have the same
interests as myself?
It may be that I'll get the answers to my questions
only by taking them to alt.postmodernism. One day, I may have the time
to do that too.
Indranil.
Sugato Bhattacharyya
> did not go to Engineering, Medicine, or so called "Science" subjects. There is
> just one exception I can think of. Semanti Ghosh, daughter of poet
Sankha Ghosh
> ranked among the top five and chose to study Humanities. Do you think it is
> solely due to a fear from a bleak enterpreneural future ?
Just for the sake of completeness, Indrani Roy, who, if I remember
correctly, ranked first in the higher secondary exams in 1972, studied
English. I realize that this may be ancient history to some on the net,
but what the hell!
--
Sugato Bhattacharyya
Anindya Ghoshal
: In article <96024.183...@psuvm.psu.edu>,
There are quite a few of those ..infact I guess Art students dominated
till the fifties..in the sixties the focus shifted to studying physics et al
and by the late seventies the focus to the technical schools was complete.
If I remember correctly Ketaki Kushari Dyson topped I.A. and her overall
rank was in the top five in that year. She still probably holds the highest
recorded marks that had been ever being scored in English at the HS. level. Tarun Dutta
(former Chief Secy., WB),Presidency College, 1955..topped all the public exams
inlcuding M.A. in Econ. from the sec. level. I guess same is true for Dr.Sukhomoy
Chakraborty (former Econ. advisor to P.M.),Presidency, 1956(?), a batchmate
of Prof. Amartya Sen. Sudhir Kumar Gangopadhyay who topped both his matriculation and his I.Sc. and then went ahead to study Bengali at Presi. with poet Sankhya
Ghosh and then did an M.A. in Econ...well I know quite a few such people who
went on to study humanities after being toppers at their secondary exams...
but that was a
different generation, a different era with probably quite a different
philosophy.
regards,
: --
: Sugato Bhattacharyya
Anindya.
--
email address: agho...@eng2.uconn.edu
Joydeep Bhattacharya
agho...@newsserver.uconn.edu says...
[..]
I guess same is true for Dr.Sukhomoy
>Chakraborty (former Econ. advisor to P.M.),Presidency, 1956(?), a
batchmate
>of Prof. Amartya Sen. Sudhir Kumar Gangopadhyay who topped both his
matriculation and his I.Sc. and then went ahead to study Bengali at
Presi. with poet S
>Ghosh and then did an M.A. in Econ...well I know quite a few such people
who
>went on to study humanities after being toppers at their secondary
exams...
>but that was a
>different generation, a different era with probably quite a different
>philosophy.
>
>regards,
>Anindya.
Add to that list Prof. Mukul Majumdar (Cornell); his elder brother
Chanchal Majumdar however went into Physics.
Shubu Mukherjee
>>>>> In article <96024.183...@psuvm.psu.edu>, Dasgupta <TXD...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
TDG> About Apratim and Naeem's questions on Arts and "Science", don't you
TDG> think that there'san antipathy toward humanities among educated middle
TDG> and upper-middle class ? I don't know of ANY high-ranker in Secondary
TDG> Board Examinations who did not go to Engineering, Medicine, or so
TDG> called "Science" subjects. There is just one exception I can think
TDG> of. Semanti Ghosh, daughter of poet Sankha Ghosh ranked among the top
TDG> five and chose to study Humanities. Do you think it is solely due to a
TDG> fear from a bleak enterpreneural future ?
Picking secondary or higher exams as your parameter seems quite
ridiculous to me because I have never written more a boring test than
the secondary or higher secondary exam in my whole life. I felt
bloody bored and sleepy when I got those papers in my hand at the exam
hall. If I remember correctly, I found the ISI extrance exam the most
exciting of the exams I had written while in high school.
With all due respect to the high rankers (*) I must say that
___just___ a high rank in either secondary or higher secondary (at
least in our generation) says nothing about the intellect/ability of
the ranker.
-Shubu
(*) include some of the SCB veterans
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shubu Mukherjee Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison, Computer Sciences
sh...@cs.wisc.edu http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~shubu