A PhD in Persian? Who needs that?!

This is pure terror. Especially for someone planning to take up the same career. With shortage of jobs and cutting down of departments, of course, Persian, Urdu (Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, ...) would be the first to go. And with them research on various literatures which some would insanely consider precious. Of course, we don't need PhDs on Persian poetry. Milton will do for now. And later, when even English departments become too cumbersome, (what with their study of English translations of Chughtai, Premchand, and such like) they too must go.

Letting Off Steam

I would wish to believe that an awful completely forgettable week, certain disturbing patterns of behaviour and a broken foot are excuses enough to allow for a mini-rant. I'm pretty sure this would seem to be terribly uninteresting (if at all coherent) reading. I am usually against blogs which end up resembling personal diaries/ letters to Agony Aunt, etc. But things have bothered me enough now and I need this to get them out of my system. What makes a doctor believe he has the right to lecture a patient in with a broken foot about sabhyata or Indian culture simply because they prefer to hop across to their office on their own? 'Self-help' apparently is a western concept (or so I was told). Our (making the usual 'us' versus 'them' division and making the grand assumption that I'm ready and willing to be included in any such collective identity) sanskriti teaches us to help others, and consequently taking help from others as well. The above, as far as I can see, is especially important for a young woman to understand in order to be cultured.** And, of course, a concept such as 'self help' is western (and synonymously a corrupting influence). For wouldn't it go against, for instance, the traditional conservative rhetoric behind helping pati-parmeshwar and letting him accept help? Wouldn't 'self help' actually then imply that women are not denied a sense of 'self' to begin with, which traditional roles of housekeeper, sati savitri seek to efface? What also gives people the right to discredit someone on the basis of their subject of interest? (Something incidentally which this particular doctor seemed to do. Missing classes is apparently not that big a deal if one doesn't happen to be a 'sciencie'.) Why must Humanities be considered inferior to the Sciences? Why must Art and Philosophy be so sidelined? Why must being a good student in school always imply potential for becoming a good engineer or doctor?

Perhaps so that doctors can make regressive statements on culture and such like? Or perhaps it benifits power structures and power hierarchies? Maybe if there are more doctors, engineers, software professionals, technicians, management consultants than thinkers, artisits, writers, philosophers, then the nature and existence of such structures os not contemplated, which perhaps implicitly perpetuates such structures? Artists and thinkers then are more important - not because they help build the world, like engineers do - but because they help explain what sort of world is being built. ^{___________________________________________} ** For the record, some bacteria are more cultured than I may ever be. I happen to be awfully proud of that fact.

Scary Stumbles

I happened to stumbled upon what seems to be some sort of an over simplified 'reading guide' for Derrida's "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences". I'd almost given up reading when I read this:

Many people lament the decline of the humanist model, and the rise of poststructuralism, because poststructuralism throws out ideas of God, truth, self, and meaning and replaces them with relativism, ambiguity, and multiplicity. According to some people, this is EXACTLY what's WRONG with the world today. If only we could return to the old-fashioned values of humanism, and believe in absolute truth, fixed meaning, and permanence, everything would be OK--or at least a lot better than it is now.

I can only cringe.