Hey I am back on posting, and now i have to say something from a Bo Burnham video: Hello, did you miss me? Well then go FU-"
Now that the intro that i have been wanting to type for a while is out i can get down to making the crappy blog posts you all know and for some strange reason enjoy. I am at university now, have been since the 7th of September.
And a lot has happened, i have met people, pulled damn near all nighters, eaten junk food, fallen asleep in lectures, and wasted loads of time on the internet. And i got my computer back so HUZZA! And now i have a decent internet for the first time in my life. As such i can actually watch streaming video! I CAN GO ON YOUTUBE!
Ya, very shocking idea, i know. And so i am in university and should have tonnes of stories to tell, but i don't really want to tell them all now. They feel like they are my stories, to tell in person. But i do have something i kinda want to talk about now.
One of the classes i am taking is cultural studies, it is basically the study of what is culture. Culture is one of those things that i can't define and neither can anyone else that i have seen. Well anywho it turns out the class so far seems to be the biggest bit of bullshit i have ever sat through.
It seems to me that the class is one run by professors who get there rocks off on being profs. Cruel, harsh, and judging, i know. One of those things that once it is said which seems like slander or something else which i could be sued for. I can't be, i am just stating that this is the impression i got from the first few lectures.
Then something different happened yesterday. See, in cultures i also lucked out with getting my favorite TA for the class. He is my favorite simply because... i dunno why but he is. Anywho, back to what i was saying, i didn't look forward to the lecture but did look forward to the seminar with my TA because it was actually interesting.
Anywho yesterday i actually found the lecture interesting. It was a different prof talking, she somehow inspired me to actually sit up and pay attention. Her lecture was about language and how it is formed from ideas, but how we could never truly know language because we never really know the ideas of other people.
It was fascinating and confusing and messed with the heads of everyone who was listening. The talk left my head spinning, she let us question her and answered us. The lecture had discussion to it. It had a back and fourth. She was willing to admit things that she didn't know to us. It was so refreshing to listen to, to hear a prof who didn't try to make it sound like they knew everything under the sun.
And yet other people found it frustrating and annoying. They found the fact that she didn't claim to know everything, to offer certainty frustrating. It makes me think about my own perspective. If i find the lack of a center, the lack of ground beneath me comforting what does that say about me? And what does it mean to say that we take comfort from people who don't admit their own ignorance, and dislike those who do?
I'm glad you posted this, I've been thinking a lot about this today.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't bother me so much that she didn't know what she was talking about - profs are human too, they can't know everything, and I don't expect them to. It was more the way in which she was speaking. To me, she was dull, confusing and disinterested in her topic. The lack of technology as a prop really threw me off. That's probably saying something about our culture today, but I'm a visual learner - I retain information much better if I have visual aids to help out, and having her stand at the front of an enormous lecture hall for an hour and talk was too much (Thank goodness she cut it off at an hour, instead of the usual two).
When I went to my seminar this morning, my TA, a cultural studies major and personal fan of the prof (she's read many of the professor's books on semiotics and discourse)told us to completely ignore what we had learned yesterday. She thought that for a first year lecture (and this was really only the third lecture that we've had in that class) it was way too dense, and unclear. She then proceeded to talk about semiotics and Saussure, and why things are labelled the way they are in our culture - the differences and similarities between other cultures, and how nothing really 'exists' until we acknowledge it with language.
Pt 2: It was by far the most interesting seminar I've had to date. Semiotics was never really something I had thought about at great length, but I this was by far one of the most enjoyable classes at university.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why the lecture was so unclear to many of us - my TA even admitted to not understanding half of what the prof said. I'll put this behind me for now, and try to look forward to her lectures in the future- although I much prefer Junyk's style of teaching (I guess I'll just look forward to his even more!) What I don't understand is how the other profs came off as cruel and judging - I didn't get that vibe from them at all, and I'm usually good at reading people. Explain!
lol by cruel and judging i meant my opinions of them so far.
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