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[temporaryname]

So, is it appropriate to lead a chorus of "Kumbaya" yet, or will we need to have another round of cathartic pedantry to get this thread to that point?

I so got a mental image of Johnny Olson calling out "T_R_B and Polly Mer, come on down! You're the next contestants on Cathartic Pedantry!"

Okay, I'll go away now.

[post_functional]

No, I really think that this odd shouting match has to do with disciplinary hegemony: the idea that how one's discipline uses a word is fine while another's standard use is "erroneous."

Chime, x1000.  I've been really amused by offhand attempts to drag poor, long-suffering music theory into this.  Most of the questions in music that have any analogy to feminist theory are properly taken up by the musicologists.

The "just wait until these snarky essayists try to get a job or an MFA at my university" fantasy is a non-starter.  My trick knee tells me that Dr. B's students want to write for The Daily Show, not stay in academia.

[t_r_b]

The "just wait until these snarky essayists try to get a job or an MFA at my university" fantasy is a non-starter.  My trick knee tells me that Dr. B's students want to write for The Daily Show, not stay in academia.

At least one of them (I believe it was the young man who objects to female facial hair) declared his intention of going to grad school. Better get grooming, ladies: this charmer could be headed to an MFA program near you!

As for all this being nothing but quibbles between different disciplines' use of the word "theory," I have yet to see anyone offer an example of any "theory" in any academic discipline (as defined by the standard use of the term "theory" in that discipline) that a person can "violate." There may well be some such theory somewhere, but I haven't heard of it. More to the point, if any sort of feminist theory, as defined by feminist theorists, can be said to be "violated," no one has offered an example of it.

However much disciplines differ in their use of this word (and in countless other ways), such differences have no bearing on this discussion except to the degree that people want to harp on Polly's overstatements (long after she apologized for them) or to criticize my snarking at someone's sloppy use of language. If you don't like my snark, by all means say so, but don't dress it up as a defense of disciplinary distinctiveness. I know the discipline(s) in question, and I stand by the content of said snark.

I've been really amused by offhand attempts to drag poor, long-suffering music theory into this.  Most of the questions in music that have any analogy to feminist theory are properly taken up by the musicologists.

The comparison is only significant here to the extent that neither feminist theory nor music theory, as understood by those in the relevant disciplines, can be properly said to be "violated." If in fact "music theory," as used by music theorists, describes something equivalent to a body of laws (or something else violable) by all means correct me: I am eager to learn. Otherwise, the comparison stands.

[post_functional]

Well, I for one hate to think of music theory as codifying "rules" per se, but as I tell my own students, if you're going to use parallel fifths, you've got to really, really mean it.

Yes, in certain stylistic contexts, music theory does indeed engender norms (a better word than "rules") that are violable.  Some styles are more exacting than others.  If you're writing 16th Century counterpoint in the style of, say, Palestrina, the norms of dissonance and consonance treatment are very strict, nearly non-negotiable.

[weddings]

@ mad_doctor

Hilarious! :)

[polly_mer]

No, no, no--this assignment teaches them that it's okay to be brats if they spell and punctuate correctly and if they emulate the cutely tight-a$$ed locutions and phrasings of university "wits."

None of these things is actually funny; they are all smug and upper-middle-class witty and, despite their "transgressiveness," oh so genteel. The writers are preppy and snarky. They are sneppy.

Pfft.  What kind of theory is that to be espousing? 


 
 

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