Academiana 101

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operant conditioning, regression to the mean, Nag Hammadi library, 'The Fly Is About AIDS', Dziga Vertov, Heisenberg principle.

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:13 (seventeen years ago) link

regression to the mean

this one is actually useful to know, though!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah. And Jon? I think these

THE CIVIL WAR WAS TO FREE THE SLAVES
AMERICANS WENT WEST
BEETHOVEN COULDN'T HEAR OMG

most of us knew by sixth grade.

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:16 (seventeen years ago) link

In computer science:

C is fast, Java is slow.
Assembly language is fast, C is slow

― lord pooperton (ex machina), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:17 (seventeen years ago) link

I wager most adults wouldn't be able to explain the civil war beyond "ending slavery".

Also, SO-CRATRES AND FROOD were in Bill and Ted!

― lord pooperton (ex machina), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:18 (seventeen years ago) link

College words/phrases: spurious, hegemony, pluralism, avatar, correlation does not imply causation, deconstruction.

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, Laurel, that's why I cheated on the Normans and said "Was I the only one ..."

Better for lit majors would just be a list of short works always explicated in the same way. "Dover Beach" is about science! In The Metamorphosis it's actually the family that changes, not Gregor! (Plus ones you figure out on your own, like "Lolita is actually really cutting and funny!")

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:21 (seventeen years ago) link

I wager most adults wouldn't be able to explain the civil war beyond "ending slavery".

Maybe, but I think most college grads would at least give it a whirl?

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Seriously, though, nobody else's intro to anthro included a chunk of that Body Ritual Among the Nacirema thing?

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:24 (seventeen years ago) link

THE CIVIL WAR WAS TO FREE THE SLAVES

i got in an argument with some girl in my german class a couple years ago who heard me talking about the civil war with someone and suddenly blurted out "the civil war wasn't about slavery!" i say "so what was it about?" and she says "well, i don't remember, i just remember my teacher saying that it wasn't really about slavery." OH THE THINGS YOU LEARN IN SCHOOL.

it's funny because when you get into the real world you discover that the only ppl who think the civil war had nothing to do with slavery are libertarian extremists and neo-confederates who run "THE SOUTH WAS RIGHT!!" type websites.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Mine did. Also 'The Sacred Rac'. We also read a Yanamamo book and watched 'The Mission' except for the sex scenes, which were fast-forwarded. (xpost to nabisco)

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, I can thank college for teaching me how to play killer badminton.

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:30 (seventeen years ago) link

correlation does not imply causation

Ha, try high school sciences

― lord pooperton (ex machina), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:31 (seventeen years ago) link

buy low sell high

― intensity in tent cities (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:34 (seventeen years ago) link

and leave a beautiful corpse

― intensity in tent cities (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:34 (seventeen years ago) link

college-speak for "correlation does not imply causation" is "post hoc, ergo propter hoc." or something like that.

other college phrases: "creative destruction," ceteris paribus.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:35 (seventeen years ago) link

cui bono

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:37 (seventeen years ago) link

quo vadis
res ipsa loquitur
exclusio unius

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:37 (seventeen years ago) link

cf
nb

― lord pooperton (ex machina), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Weltschmerz
Weltanschuung
Götterdämmerung

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:39 (seventeen years ago) link

vis-a-vis, ergo, QED

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:40 (seventeen years ago) link

ars longa, vita brevis...that's high school English, though

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:40 (seventeen years ago) link

(Weltschmerz was a semifinal word at the Scripps bee this year)

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:40 (seventeen years ago) link

that's high school English, though

― lord pooperton (ex machina), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:41 (seventeen years ago) link

in flagrante delicto

― intensity in tent cities (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:41 (seventeen years ago) link

"Et in Arcadia ego"

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, srsly.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:42 (seventeen years ago) link

problematize

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Trivia that anyone who has taken the Art History Survey now knows:
Marat had a real bad skin condition. Toulouse-lautrec was very short. Blue paint is the most expensive color of paint. The entirety of non-western art can be neatly summed up with that Hokusai painting of a wave.

― Annabelle Lennox (Arachne), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:42 (seventeen years ago) link

I had an eccentric high school English teacher...I never got ars longa in college, though; not post-whatever enough.

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:42 (seventeen years ago) link

The entirety of ~~non-western art~~half price sushi specials can be neatly summed up with that Hokusai painting of a wave.

― lord pooperton (ex machina), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:43 (seventeen years ago) link

whoops, it was Weltanschaung

other "fun" German words/phrases:

Drang nach Osten
das dritte Reich
Lebensraum
Kulturkampf

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:44 (seventeen years ago) link

heh. "problematize" reminds me that the culture of my particular college put me in the habit of saying "I feel" when I meant "I think." it's been a real fucking problem since I graduated.

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:44 (seventeen years ago) link

"the other"

― 31g (31g), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Weltanschauung!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:45 (seventeen years ago) link

"communism is a good idea in theory, not in practice!"

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:46 (seventeen years ago) link

"problematic"

― intensity in tent cities (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:46 (seventeen years ago) link

"always already," sadly.

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:46 (seventeen years ago) link

"ideology" (pronounced with a short i!!!)

― intensity in tent cities (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:46 (seventeen years ago) link

dialectic

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:47 (seventeen years ago) link

More German:

sturm und drang
Bildungsroman

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Everything in the east is because of filial piety

― lord pooperton (ex machina), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:47 (seventeen years ago) link

GmbH = Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:48 (seventeen years ago) link

triptych
diptych
tableau

― intensity in tent cities (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:49 (seventeen years ago) link

roman-a-clef

― intensity in tent cities (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:49 (seventeen years ago) link

"deus ex machina"

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:50 (seventeen years ago) link

ts: mise en scene vs. mise en place

― intensity in tent cities (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:50 (seventeen years ago) link

pronunciamento

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:51 (seventeen years ago) link

"paradigm shift" (often the only thing that anyone ever knows about Thomas Kuhn)

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:52 (seventeen years ago) link

monkeywrench
macguffin
elephant in the room
canary in the coalmine

― intensity in tent cities (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Skipping 123 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I believe that was the b-side of Scritti Politti's fourth single, actually.

The intimidation factor of theory-words seems seriously diminished now that wikipedia exists. (Same goes for the extent to which people understand the ideas at any significant depth, but that's coming from a guy who can't seem to resist those Oxford UP Very Short Introduction to ... Wittgenstein books at the front counter.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 16:47 (seventeen years ago) link

VSI: Actually, these really are way cool, when it comes down to it -- especially considering the main previous competition was from those horrible overillustrated pastel-colored cartoony introduction-to-theory/philosophy/science books. The VSIs aren't quite as confused about your intelligence level and aren't trying so hard to entertain you, because they assume that if you picked the book up, then you're already sufficiently interested in the topic -- they just come off like a mid-level professor at a decent university was asked to write the text for an intro-level class on a given topic (which is precisely what they are).

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 16:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Yep, I read the one about Hegel and was glad I did.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 16:58 (seventeen years ago) link

drew's post reminded me of another one: la chose en soi.

another: (a) undergrads pretending that they can make any damn sense out of heidegger; (b) professors wringing their hands when some smart ass points out that heidegger was a nazi (who nonetheless schtupped a hot young jewess [hannah arendt]).

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 18:03 (seventeen years ago) link

One for the civil engineers out there... The Tacoma Narrows Bridge

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/images/narrows1_bridge_1.jpg

― LOL Thomas (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link

we saw that footage in HS physics! it never stops being fun!

― kingfish du lac (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 18:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Is that Tacoma Narrows Bridge footage in Bruce Conner's A Movie?

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 18:39 (seventeen years ago) link

HELLO I AM SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS. LEARN ABOUT ME AND OTHERS AT TEH COLLEGE.

― themountainswillscreamsforthebloodoftheblindvultureswhoflybeforethepeople'ssun! , Wednesday, 14 June 2006 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link

OMG, all people are from Africa, not just the blacks!

― like murderinging (modestmickey), Thursday, 15 June 2006 02:47 (seventeen years ago) link

"Yo, do you like The Rite of Spring?
"Fuck yeah man, it caused riots!"

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 15 June 2006 02:49 (seventeen years ago) link

ecriture feminine
semiotic chora
the abject
schizoanalysis!
deterritorialization!
dialogics
polyphony
carnival

OMG awesome Propp fairy tale generator

― dar1a g (daria g), Thursday, 15 June 2006 03:07 (seventeen years ago) link

are there no science and engineering majors on this whole goddamn thread? Death to Liberal Arts!

― geeta (geeta), Thursday, 15 June 2006 03:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Integration by parts?

― Sons Of The Redd Desert (Ken L), Thursday, 15 June 2006 03:37 (seventeen years ago) link

The Jordan form?

― Sons Of The Redd Desert (Ken L), Thursday, 15 June 2006 03:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Separation of variables?

― Sons Of The Redd Desert (Ken L), Thursday, 15 June 2006 03:45 (seventeen years ago) link

The Dining Philosophers?

― Sons Of The Redd Desert (Ken L), Thursday, 15 June 2006 03:46 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost: "The Cyborg: Where Science and the Arts Join Forces"

http://isaacschlueter.com/images/laforge.gif

"IN SPACE!"

― The Giant Mechanical Ant (The Giant Mechanical Ant), Thursday, 15 June 2006 03:50 (seventeen years ago) link

This brings back a lot of memories, such as:

free indirect discourse, which sounds a bit dirty
pastiche was also a term they loved bandying about
heteronormativity
totalitarianism - and how Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union really were v. different
docile bodies
false consciousness
base/superstructure
hybridity was one of the favourites of favourites
mimicry and ambivalence
white man's burden
binary oppositions!
metonymy
The Enlightenment as a catchcry for all liberal thinking after the French Revolution
auteur
Epicurus and how he is really misunderstood; the guy was all about moderation
hyper-reality
the copy
defamiliarisation
the spectacle
lowbrow culture is actually really cool!
inscription
return of the repressed
celebration of the irrational - which means all academics can get away with writing rubbish
the novum
diachronic/synchronic
language does not mirror reality but rather creates reality
paradigms!
discourse!

Some of these concepts are useful, but in many cases they seem to be like a secret language that suggests elite membership to make others feel less intelligent. The great irony is when these terms are misunderstood and then taken over by the masses

― salexandra (salexander), Thursday, 15 June 2006 04:26 (seventeen years ago) link

I haven't noticed anything being mentioned yet that I (first) learnt at uni, but the one thing that I can think of that I did first hear at uni was the word "Pedagogy". I hate that word. Yuk.

― miele kitty (miele), Thursday, 15 June 2006 06:09 (seventeen years ago) link

harold innis and staples theory
the turner thesis
equalisation payments + resource revenues
foreign direct investment and the branch plant economy
the keynesian welfare state (KWS)
the caudillo complex
the waffle!

― derrick (derrick), Thursday, 15 June 2006 09:00 (seventeen years ago) link

four weeks pass...

american colleges sound awful

― sunny successor (katharine), Friday, 14 July 2006 15:31 (seventeen years ago) link

i shouldn't have majored in math, everyone else got to learn more interesting things than i did :(

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Friday, 14 July 2006 17:15 (seventeen years ago) link

i feel u caitlin

― Machibuse '80 (ex machina), Friday, 14 July 2006 17:19 (seventeen years ago) link

fifteen years pass...

vis-a-vis, ergo, QED

A non-native speaker asked me about vis-à-vis. I told him I tend not to use it, or use it only as a special effect, to sound elevated and most likely humorous. Search of the archives seems to confirm my suspicion, but I dunno.

― Duck and Sally Can’t Dance (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 30 November 2021 19:45 (two years ago) link

TS Lou Reed vis-à-vis John Cale

― Duck and Sally Can’t Dance (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 30 November 2021 19:56 (two years ago) link

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