Weird Quotations

[dr. t]

Sometimes, people write very strange things and then somehow get them published. Post them here.

 

 

"The subtitle of Peter Gay's seminal book on the Enlightenment was, for those who do not recall, "the rise of modern paganism." The full meaning of this, however, was brought home to me only a few years ago when, upon giving birth to our second child, my wife was given the option of taking her placenta home in a plastic bag along with a recipe for soup."

- Adam B. Seligman, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 92, No. 4 (Dec., 1998), pp. 960-961

[Chiqui74]

Oh yeah, placenta eating is a thing.  Eew. Some less crazy people dehydrate it and take in pill form.  :::shudder:::

[dr. t]

"But it is not [the author's] fault that the conditions that now govern entry into academic life in the United Kingdom require a first book to be completed in a far shorter period than that in which the implications of a significant insight can be fully thought through." - R.I. Moore, "Review of Heresy and Heretics in the Thirteenth Century by L.J. Sackville" in H-France Review 12:44 (2012)

 

"Moore is of course not responsible for the quality of Chiu's and Pegg's work, but he is the person who has chosen to rely on them rather than on good scholars." - Peter Biller, "Review of The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe by R.I. Moore" in Reviews in History (2014)

[ashiepoo72]

Hahaha those are some serious burns

[knp]

In an article called, "The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice" American Ethnologist vol. 4, no. 1 (1977), Michael Harner decided to expand upon the 'population pressure' theories being developed in the 60s and 70s. These held that increases in population would lead to scarcity, which would then cause innovations in agricultural technology and changes in society; in particular, this theory focused on the population pressure as a possible cause for the formation of humanity's first states.

 

We then turn to the Valley of Mexico. How will Harner apply population pressure theory there?

 

"What we can see in the Aztec case...is an extreme development, under conditions of environmental circumscription, very high population pressure, and an emphasis on maize agriculture, of a cultural pattern that grew out of a Circum-Caribbean and Mesoamerican ecological area characterized by substantial wild-game degradation and the lack of a domesticated herbivore. Intensification of horticultural practices was possible and occurred widely; but for the necessary satisfaction of essential protein requirements, [large-scale]* cannibalism was the only possible solution" (132, my emphasis.)

 

*His 'conservative' estimate is that 250,000 people were eaten in central Mexico every year.

 

"Another dietary problem for the Aztecs was the scarcity of fats (sources). While the exact amount of fatty acids required by the human body remains a subject of uncertainty among nutritionists (sources), there is an agreement that fats provide a longer-lasting energy source than carbohydrates, due to the slower rate of metabolism. ... In this connection, it is interesting that the Aztecs kept prisoners in wooden cages prior to their sacrifice and at least sometimes fattened them there (source). It should be noted that the prisoners could be fed purely on carbohydrates to build up the fat, since the essential amino acids are not necessary for such production. The confinement to cages would also have contributed to the rapid accumulation of fat, given enough caloric intake" (127-8).

 

"Soon thereafter the Spaniards conquered the entire city, and the war in the Valley of Mexico was over. Spanish rule essentially marked the end of native warfare and cannibalism, and it seems likely that the new sources of meat, in the form of introduced Old World domesticates, helped reinforce obedience to the new laws" (123).

 

If you look up articles about the Aztecs published in the late 70s, you'll find some of the responses to this. It's tremendous. I have never seen a bunch of academics bring down the hammer so fast. Some of the take-downs are works of art, although I don't have time to find them right now.

[mvlchicago]

"To anyone who has been in Bali any length of time, the deep psychological identification of Balinese men with their cocks is unmistakable. The double entendre here is deliberate."

Good old Clifford Geertz in "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight." Daedalus, 1972. 

This isn't so weird as much as it is that I love how one of the most influential anthropology papers of the past 30 years has a penis joke in it. 

Edited March 5, 2015 by mvlchicago

[ToomuchLes]

"To anyone who has been in Bali any length of time, the deep psychological identification of Balinese men with their cocks is unmistakable. The double entendre here is deliberate."

Good old Clifford Geertz in "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight." Daedalus, 1972. 

This isn't so weird as much as it is that I love how one of the most influential anthropology papers of the past 30 years has a penis joke in it. 

 

I like it! I got a good laugh out of it. 

[dr. t]

"A graph representing this dependence on p. 36 is most helpful, although the arrows in the drawing seem to be pointing in the wrong direction."

[unræd]

I'm not a historian, but one of my favorites is from Reviews in History--Michael Lapidge's careful, clinical 2007 filleting of a book on Beowulf's (supposed) historical context. The full thing is worth reading (and is available here), but here's the money graf:

 

"One’s overall impression of this book is deep disappointment: that a scholar so evidently familiar with Beowulf, and possessed of wide-ranging (if not always accurate) learning, should spawn hypothesis upon hypothesis without ever taking the trouble to subject these hypotheses to common sense. One can only wonder about the process, and the readers’ reports, by which such a book came to be accepted for publication by the Oxford University Press. Because of the outrageous and uncontrolled nature of the speculation which it contains, The Origins of Beowulf is, in this reviewer’s opinion, unlikely to have any impact whatsoever on the field of Anglo-Saxon studies."

[dr. t]

You know, I've been told A-S studies is a snake pit. And wow, that is indeed a review.

Edited August 10, 2015 by telkanuru

[unræd]

You know, I've been told A-S studies is a snake pit. And wow, that is indeed a review.

 

Senior scholars tell me it's not really quite as bad, anymore--but some of them say it a bit wistfully.

[Katzenmusik]

I can't remember which book it was, so I can't give an exact quote...but in the acknowledgement section, a scholar said something like, "I would like to thank my six-year-old son, who has grown up with this project. Any errors or omissions in this text are entirely his responsibility." 

[novazembla]

I recently read a book that was dedicated to a person who saved the author as a six-year-old from drowning in the Niger River.