Conflicting disciplines

[Lauren the Librarian]

I would love some advice from all y'all.

I'm 3 weeks into my first semester of grad school. I'm at a new school in a new city. I enjoy most of my readings though I am a little daunted by the amount and type of work required from me, but I seem to be doing okay.

However, I'm finding that in some of my classes I see the issues from a different perspective. I am in a different discipline than what I did in undergrad, but it is driving me nuts that my classes ignore all the fundamental stuff I learned in undergrad. I thought academics look at other academics work. Not the most current stuff, no. But certainly stuff that's been around 15-20 years. I'm actually wondering if I'm in the wrong field all together! It could be that I am taking courses that aren't in my specialty. I am being proactive by finding ways to bring in other perspectives (there are some cross citations in the literature). But it struck me today that this might be an unsupportive environment. Not the people, the people are great. But the perspective is off. I have to bite my tongue in class so I don't disrupt the conversation. I asked one of my profs about that and she said, "Say it anyway," (like I said, the people are great). But I've had to learn the word epistomological this week because it's the best way to explain my issue: I see things from a completely different epistomological framework!

I wandered over to the grad student office of the field I got my undergrad in, and talked to them about their program, etc. It got me thinking that maybe I should get a PhD in my undergrad field so I could go back to my current field and speak as an expert in both fields from an interdisciplinary perspective. Gah!

Are these feelings because I'm at a new school? New discipline? Interdisciplined? Bad environment? What should I be looking for? For what it's worth, I really like the professors and the students seem cool, although more than a few have a "I just want the degree" mentality. I'm curious if anyone has experienced this before.

[zilch]

professors have been entrenched in their disciplines for so long that it is very hard for them to step back and look for a fresh perspective. also, grad students aren't necessarily admitted for ability to develop independent thoughts. In fact, it's damn near impossible to evaluate that particular aspect based on an application. That being said, most academic institutions need grad students to do work (teaching and/or research for a professor) and they are generally ok with unoriginal students which doesn't help the whole 'stimulating discussion' thing. Some might even prefer them because they do what they're told.

perhaps visit a professor during office hours and bring up a few of the alternative perspectives you've found and see what their thoughts are. They may have a good reason for not including it in their way of thinking or it could be that they simply don't know where to look for views outside of their own discipline.

[rising_star]

It's hard to say without knowing what the disciplines are. It could just be a bias of the instructors that you have, rather than of the discipline as a whole.

[Lauren the Librarian]

I went to office hours today. The professor was helpful in alerting me to the requirements of a structured argument. She gave me books to read to get me up on the lingo (preparing for the established discourse), and names of professors in other departments that might be helpful. Yet...

I walked out of there unsatisified and disturbed because it seemed she was gearing me up to argue the validity of science. She used terms like "biological determinism" and "essentialism" like they were bad things. I got the feeling that to a number of academic disciplines including English, Engineering, Science and Technology Studies, Art History, etc, human evolution is discounted as a thing of the past that no longer affects the make up of modern day humans. But I remember in my undergrad anthropology courses discussing the evolution is still affecting humans and numerous examples were cited like the clines of Sickle cell anemia carrier rates and the protection against malaria in sub-saharan Africans (people are evolving each generation). I thought it was perfectly well regarded as fact that human variation exists, and not just as individuals, but as groups of people who share various traits. The other day in class we had been discussing (among other issues) the project to develop the $100 genome test in order to treat sick individuals more effectively. I witnessed a group consensus that it's okay(i.e. politically correct) to say we're all different, but it's not okay to say we've got some things in common with our neighbors, lest "someone" uses that idea for racist purposes.

In office hours today, she gave me some leeway and said, "maybe the 3rd wave of feminism should review the essentials", but I'd have to make a case for that. I'm actually up for it, I think. It shocks me though, how circular the thought can be in a given discipline. She looked at me and said bittersweetly, "interdisciplinary studies may be better for you". She gave me props for speaking up in class and said I had "chutzpah".

I guess I'm one of those "original thinkers" and will have to complete my studies in an unsupportive environment. Or I'll get two PhDs and then every one can kiss my patoody.

[hogmommy]

I have no advice for your dilemma, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that evolution doesn't effect modern human populations. In addition to the wonderful example you gave regarding sickle cell anemia/malaria immunity, there also exists the fact that people are being born without wisdom teeth and other vestigal organs, the increase in height of Americans over the past 300 years and the (disturbing) trend of earlier menstruation in girls.

[StrangeLight]

i'm... i want to put this more delicately than it will probably sound, so forgive me, for i mean no offense, but i'm not sure you're understanding "essentialism" or "biological determinism" the same way that your professors and classmates are. my suggestion is to look for a few journal articles that discuss the epistemology and process of social construction. sounds like you're in a field with a lot of constructivists, and it sounds like your disagreements with their perspective on how the world works may be due more to unfamiliarity with the debates they're engaging in, rather than a disagreement with their ultimate positions.

yes, human beings evolve. but there is nothing biological about race, for example. how we define race differs across time and space, the criteria has little to do with anything genetic or biological. usually (though not always) race is somehow related to phenotype (skin colour, hair texture, bone structure), but those rules change over time and place. there's nothing BIOLOGICAL or ESSENTIAL about race. that doesn't mean that race isn't experienced concretely in people's lives; it is. but it's a construction, not biological or essential.

does that make sense? do i just sound like the people in your seminars? probably.

for what it's worth, social and cultural anthropology at the graduate level also talks about essentialism and biological determinism like it's a bad thing. often, the background that all of us get in our undergraduate surveys lags behind the cutting edge theory work happening at any given time. i'm not sure that you would have many epistemological agreements with your colleagues in an anthropology department either. the entire discipline is in crisis and has been since the culture wars and the linguistic turn.

it is very possible that your fellow seminar-goers are speaking in extremes and loosing the subtlety of the arguments they're trying to make. it's also possible that they don't fully grasp the concepts they're employing. some people grab onto jargon, get a grasp on part of the concept, and then run hog wild hoping to impress their profs in seminar. and sometimes the profs are guilty of... problematic interpretations of the theory they're teaching.

i don't think any constructivist position actually denies the process of human evolution, but the process by which people form groups (based on ethnicity or race or gender or nationality or whatever else) is not actually biological, even (especially) when the logic behind group formation is based on "science" or "genetics." malaria immunity amongst africans has nothing to do with race or blackness, for example, but with people having a long-term exposure over multiple generations and building up an immunity. now, someone "constructing" race will extrapolate that and declare that black people from africa are genetically more resistant to malaria. people from africa, yes. black, no. blackness has nothing to do with the immunity. being from a certain part of africa does.

is that distinction clear? how genetics or human evolution is employed to reify the biological argument for race?

sorry, that was long-winded and probably unnecessary. i'm just procrastinating.

ANYWAY... i've also found it difficult to talk across disciplines. i can understand a cultural anthropologist or a sociologist just fine, but lit students and poli sci students and "cultural studies" students are speaking another language. even within my own discipline, i find there's a lot of disconnect between regional subfields. it can be frustrating and i don't really have an answer for how to deal with it. sometimes i feel like i'm in the wrong department when i'm exposed to another historian's approach, but my advisor's line of thinking is right in my wheelhouse so i just ignore everyone else and press forward.

Edited February 11, 2010 by StrangeLight

[Lauren the Librarian]

does that make sense? do i just sound like the people in your seminars? probably.

Actually, no. I wish people in my seminars were that clear or direct. They're not using that language, nothing close to it. They tiptoe around race, gender, and class and every thread of discussion ends with an "interesting".

sorry, that was long-winded and probably unnecessary. i'm just procrastinating.

Eh, that was an intelligent response. Good for me that you're procrastinating!

You're right, I'm not at all familiar with the accepted discourse. However, I'm not entirely sure the other students are either. No one is using academic terms (epistomological was introduced in the readings). I use general language to express my opinion directly and frankly. My instructors used the terms to say I am arguing for essentialism or biological determinism and told me to go read feminist anthropologists. From what I understand of those ideas, I'm not arguing for that at all. But the more I talk, the more they said I am. So I'm confused. Obvious answer is I have no idea what I'm saying... But I think it's more than that. I think there is a line of reasoning that they don't have in their domain of knowledge, but I do. I'm pretty sure I can articulate it, but it's possible I simply haven't done so yet. I keep coming back to the interdisciplinary nature of my studies and how I take ideas and theories and transpose, transport and integrate into a different setting. I am a social scientist that uses physical science methodologies. Or maybe it's the other way around, hehehe...

The people in my class could very well be contructivists, but no one has identified as such. Actually, I think half (6 of 12) don't care at all about the subject matter and are taking the class because it's cross listed or because they were bored.

Thanks for your thougtful reply. I don't mind harsh criticism as long as it gets me to somewhere new.

hogmommy: That's where I'm coming from. It's not so much that I'm arguing for biological cages, as I am saying, "Hey, you're not giving evolution (social evolutionary psychology and anthropology) its due."

[qazwerty]

i'm... i want to put this more delicately than it will probably sound, so forgive me, for i mean no offense, but i'm not sure you're understanding "essentialism" or "biological determinism" the same way that your professors and classmates are. my suggestion is to look for a few journal articles that discuss the epistemology and process of social construction. sounds like you're in a field with a lot of constructivists, and it sounds like your disagreements with their perspective on how the world works may be due more to unfamiliarity with the debates they're engaging in, rather than a disagreement with their ultimate positions.

yes, human beings evolve. but there is nothing biological about race, for example. how we define race differs across time and space, the criteria has little to do with anything genetic or biological. usually (though not always) race is somehow related to phenotype (skin colour, hair texture, bone structure), but those rules change over time and place. there's nothing BIOLOGICAL or ESSENTIAL about race. that doesn't mean that race isn't experienced concretely in people's lives; it is. but it's a construction, not biological or essential.

does that make sense? do i just sound like the people in your seminars? probably.

for what it's worth, social and cultural anthropology at the graduate level also talks about essentialism and biological determinism like it's a bad thing. often, the background that all of us get in our undergraduate surveys lags behind the cutting edge theory work happening at any given time. i'm not sure that you would have many epistemological agreements with your colleagues in an anthropology department either. the entire discipline is in crisis and has been since the culture wars and the linguistic turn.

it is very possible that your fellow seminar-goers are speaking in extremes and loosing the subtlety of the arguments they're trying to make. it's also possible that they don't fully grasp the concepts they're employing. some people grab onto jargon, get a grasp on part of the concept, and then run hog wild hoping to impress their profs in seminar. and sometimes the profs are guilty of... problematic interpretations of the theory they're teaching.

i don't think any constructivist position actually denies the process of human evolution, but the process by which people form groups (based on ethnicity or race or gender or nationality or whatever else) is not actually biological, even (especially) when the logic behind group formation is based on "science" or "genetics." malaria immunity amongst africans has nothing to do with race or blackness, for example, but with people having a long-term exposure over multiple generations and building up an immunity. now, someone "constructing" race will extrapolate that and declare that black people from africa are genetically more resistant to malaria. people from africa, yes. black, no. blackness has nothing to do with the immunity. being from a certain part of africa does.

is that distinction clear? how genetics or human evolution is employed to reify the biological argument for race?

sorry, that was long-winded and probably unnecessary. i'm just procrastinating.

ANYWAY... i've also found it difficult to talk across disciplines. i can understand a cultural anthropologist or a sociologist just fine, but lit students and poli sci students and "cultural studies" students are speaking another language. even within my own discipline, i find there's a lot of disconnect between regional subfields. it can be frustrating and i don't really have an answer for how to deal with it. sometimes i feel like i'm in the wrong department when i'm exposed to another historian's approach, but my advisor's line of thinking is right in my wheelhouse so i just ignore everyone else and press forward.

This is probably the most well-articulated, logical, intelligent and coherent piece of writing I have ever encountered on an internet forum.

[StrangeLight]

and yet it had a typo. "loosing" instead of losing. thanks for the compliment, though.

lauren, is it just the one seminar where you're finding the disconnect, or is it within your department in general? i've found that the conceptual reservoir that people pull from differs with each course i take. you may find a more receptive atmosphere to your views in other courses taught by other professors without having to actually switch fields.

again, no real solution to offer on how to deal with that class in particular, but i'd suggest asking around your department to see if there are other faculty members whose ideas and perspectives click with yours. one scholar, or one group of scholarship, rarely exemplifies an entire discipline, and you may find some people within your department that are a little more open to your interdisciplinary drive.

maybe schedule time with your DGS and say frankly, "this is how i see the world. is there someone in the department whose work lines up well with that?" then go to that person, even if they're outside your subfield or speciality, and bounce your ideas off of him/her. it doesn't sound to me like your ideas are all that wild or controversial, so i'm sure that outside the culture of that class, you can find a few people in your department that are on the same page as you.

and, also.... it sounds like your classmates in that seminar just suck.

[Lauren the Librarian]

I emailed a superstar, groundbreaking, been-around-a-long-time, totally respected researcher in my field and got a response. (and OMG, I got a great response!!! )

::Hi Lauren,

It's nice to hear from you. I couldn't agree more on the value of integrating anthropological and evolutionary biological insights into xxx. Much more is needed.

It is harder than it may look to integrate research across disciplines. It is one thing to pick up on interesting ideas; it is quite another to fully "digest" the ideas and harmonize them with the theory of another field. I put those cautions in the article, because, indeed, I do not have advanced qualifications in the subject, though I have had excellent coursework and reading. Too often, I have seen ideas from a variety of other disciplines imported into xxx without a deep understanding of the theory and philosophy behind them. The result is sometimes the production of embarrassingly bad off-the-top-of-the-head models and ideas.

One more general point about your concerns: The range of ideas and possible research areas in xxx is enormous, and there have never been enough researchers to develop a critical mass in most specialty areas. Work is scattered and often doesn't build cumulatively. That's not the fault of individuals; rather it is sheer lack of numbers.

As for my own anthropological explorations, see my two articles on information, one in the online journal xxx, and the other in the Journal of xxx. Also see my paper xxx which is on my webpage (url below).

Anthropological knowledge is very scarce in xxx, so if you have in mind to continue for a doctorate, I'm sure you will have plenty of topics and ideas to research! Check out the work of xxx, who is the only person I know of with advanced qualifications in anthropology in xxx.

Regards,

xxx::

Hmm, I may have found my niche.

and, also.... it sounds like your classmates in that seminar just suck.

Some, yes. Others may be on defensive mode. The work load is unusally demanding in my "worst" course and I think their minds are busy trying to keep everything straight. I am totally energized by that email repsonse now. The disillusionment I experienced is transforming into empowerment. I'm feeling better about my place at the school and grad school in general.