Rough Theory

Theory In The Rough

Monthly Archives: February 2007

Readers Anonymous, Or, the Non-Utopian Approach to Text

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 28, 2007

It’s been so long since we’ve met to discuss actual readings, rather than just commiserating about our overworked lives, that L Magee recently referred to us as “Readers Anonymous” – but, as promised, with March approaching, we’ll be entering a tangent on the sociology of scientific knowledge – with works carefully chosen to be relevant [...]

Critical Theory, Reading Group, Sociology of Knowledge

Dancing with Myself

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 26, 2007

So recently I’ve noticed that people who know me personally have started citing my blog back at me in theoretical discussions. Often in situations where they remember what I wrote far more clearly than I do… It’s a strangely effective argumentative move: I sit there wondering, “Did I really say that?”… And then: “If I [...]

Blogging

The Theory Chapter Reloaded

25 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on February 24, 2007

I know this is becoming a bit of a regular rant… but I was thinking again this afternoon about how common it is for methods courses and textbooks to start with some kind of introductory “theory chapter”, which generally informs students that, before they begin any kind of research design process, they must: (1) know [...]

Methodology, Teaching

Images of Redemption

2 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on February 22, 2007

I’ve been wanting for the past several days to pick up on Sinthome’s wonderful post Of the Law as a Veil. In this post, Sinthome reflects on tensions between the Lacanian notion of lack as perhaps constitutive of our experience of intersubjectivity, and critical theoretic appeals to ideals that view lack as historically constituted – [...]

Conversations, Critical Theory, Philosophy of History

Street Corner Virtual Society

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 22, 2007

Going to the train station around midnight last night, I passed a frustrated man talking to someone on a public telephone on a major street. “Blog!” he was insisting, “No: blog! B – L – O – G! Blog! Look… it’s a kind of online diary, okay?!”

Blogging, Overheard

Comment Delays

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 21, 2007

Just a quick apology – and warning – that comments from “regulars” seem to be sitting around in the moderation queue for me to approve, rather than going through automatically as they should. I assume this problem is iatrogenic: an update yesterday, which was intended to help reduce the massive spam surge that has hit [...]

Admin

How to Work Out What Theory to Swim In

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 20, 2007

Some weeks back, I agreed to take the “theory lecture” for a particular course (nice sideline theoretical outsourcing business I seem to have going here – L Magee was talking about Hegelians for Hire a few weeks back: maybe there’s a market in this sort of thing after all…). At the time I agreed, though, [...]

Professional Life, Teaching

Dissolutions…

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 18, 2007

I was looking for a bit of illustrative material for the quant methods course, and ran across a number of illustrations of (purported… ;-P) exam responses – not quite what I was after, but I couldn’t resist reproducing a couple of them here. Via Evolving Thoughts: And via fullhyd.com (which offers a number of others [...]

Links, Math and Science

The Self-Reflexive Defense [Updated x 3]

23 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on February 17, 2007

Scott Eric Kaufman has been teasing us for a while now, in various settings, with the fact that he has been working on a piece on the history of theory in the ’70s and ’80s. He has now posted a draft of the piece at Acephalous – shorn, apparently, of its conclusion – and is [...]

Conversations, Critical Theory, Interdisciplinary, Philosophy of History

The Goldie Locks Strategy

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 16, 2007

Okay, I’m reading too many blogs this morning… (I have to kill some time before a meeting…) But I wanted to pass along this quote, in which Omar Lizardo characterises a very common academic argumentative strategy almost too precisely for comfort: The model of theoretical analysis is what one could call the “Goldie-Locks strategy.” This [...]

Links

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