metro mama

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Who What Where? Fuck Me

I just emerged from the third class this week where I spoke barely two words. How can I be the only one in a room who's never read Foucault?

I'm feeling a little intimidated. And overwhelmed by the amount of work.

On the bright side, tonight is the first pub night. Now there's a settting where I'm in my element. Let's just hope they don't spend the whole night talking about fucking Foucault.

16 Comments:

Blogger Bea said...

Another advantage of staying off the tenure track: I get to hang out in nice cozy first-year courses where no one expects me to talk about Foucault.

7:54 PM  
Blogger Mouse said...

Sure, I've read Foucault. Doesn't mean I remember much of anything about it.

A huge advantage of the job I hope to get is that they want students to engage directly with the text, so I can continue to avoid overly involved theories that, in my opinion, generally allow people in my field to avoid the primary text.

8:03 PM  
Blogger Kyla said...

Pub night! Sounds great.

8:55 PM  
Blogger b*babbler said...

Fouc-who?

Just kidding... I do know who Foucault is, but although I consider myself reasonably well-read, I can say I've never read anything by him. So I'd be just as lost. Is this what I have to look forward to if I head back to school?

9:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cheers to pub night. Been thinking of you J.

Big hugs.

9:57 PM  
Blogger moplans said...

Don't be intimidated. I found after a while that those showing off were mostly full of crap. Once I had read what they were spouting off about I realised either the hadn't read it and were pretending they did or didn't understand it.
Seriously. That is why there is a move that mouse is talking about to actually have people read things for content.
I nearly lost my mind in my first few MA classes wondering if I was reading the same paper as the others in the class.

2:02 AM  
Blogger karengreeners said...

Stay out of the Ab if you're not into talking about pretentious shit.

(have you spent much time in the Ab? I practically lived there when I wasn't sleeping in the women's centre.)

9:21 AM  
Blogger Highwaisted said...

hahahahaah i love the f words. sooo funny!

11:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

pub night cures everything :)

11:20 AM  
Blogger Run ANC said...

I think I've heard of Foucault. Couldn't tell you much else though.

Drink the lightweights under the table for me. (I'm really craving wine right now, but that would be so wrong...)

11:40 AM  
Blogger NotSoSage said...

It's academia. Construct yourself two or three sentences that actually don't make sense but could be applied in general circumstances and whip them out whenever the conversation veers off in an overly-pretentious direction. They'll think that the reason they don't understand you is because what you're saying is WAY over their heads.

12:05 PM  
Blogger Julie Marsh said...

I promise you, there is no one more literarily illiterate than me.

(Than I?)

1:45 PM  
Blogger kittenpie said...

Please. I got through an english degree just fine without reading Foucault because I read the books. (Stunning, I know.) In fact, the only people I heard talking about him were philosophy majors.

If you feel you need to join in or reel the conversation back, I'd lead with something like, "Okay, but getting back to first principles, what about what he says on page ##?"

4:02 PM  
Blogger Her Bad Mother said...

Dude. Half of the people who say that they've read Foucault have not. Half of the rest of the people who say they have and HAVE read Foucault have only read excerpts, or short essays, and maybe the back cover of History of Sexuality.

(Which, by the way, you would find very interesting. Still, it's over-rated. barthes is much better on sexuality. I know, I sound twee and snobby, but it's true. you'd LOVE Barthes. We need to talk.)

Where was I? Oh yeah - and never, ever trust anyone who calls themselves Foucauldian. Odds are that they don't know what they're talking about, and/or they're trying to pick you up.

10:17 AM  
Blogger Her Bad Mother said...

Also? Everyone feels initimidated in grad school. Especially the people who talk a lot. MOSTLY the people who talk a lot. They're talking over their insecurities. I know.

10:18 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Telefonsex Zugang

Life Sex

Amateur Privat Girls

10:54 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.