May 08, 2008
The Strange, Twisted Tale of Priya Venkatesan, PhDNews
The blogosphere is alight with the story of a (former) professor at Dartmouth named Priya Venkatesan. Teaching is a tough job and I have the highest regard for some of the amazing teachers I’ve had the privilege of learning from over the years. Priya, however, is apparently not quite in that class (pun intended).
The WSJ provides one summary of the case -
Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of “French narrative theory” that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will “name names.”The trauma was so intense that in March Ms. Venkatesan quit Dartmouth and decamped for Northwestern. She declined to comment for this piece, pointing instead to the multiple interviews she conducted with the campus press.
What praytell were these unruly students doing to our poor teacher? And, aside from her personal ethnicity, is there a desi angle to the story?
First, it appears that the students in her class shared a good chunk of my aversion to the PostModernist deconstruction of Science -
Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. “My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful,” she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. “They’d argue with your ideas.” This caused “subversiveness,” a principle English professors usually favor.Ms. Venkatesan’s scholarly specialty is “science studies,” which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, “teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth.” She continues: “Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct.”
In my book, folks like this deserve much of the same scorn as Creationists. One finds a benevolent God having begat a weird brand of science; the other a malevolent Rich / White / Old / Male power structure. All the while, neither seem to have problems with the products of said science ranging from airplanes, to the Internet, to medicine.
A few students’ course evaluations are online and highlight a toxic classroom environment -
If she teaches here… don’t take this course. Period. She defines a terrible prof, she is offended when people ask questions about her lectures and does not grade/give feedback on papers. Grade based solely on if she likes you/ you writing reflects her “sophisticated” ideas.
…Aside from the fact that I learnt nothing of value in this class besides the repeated use of the word “postmodernism” in all contexts (whether appropriate or not) and the fact that Professor Venkatesan is the most confusing/nonsensical lecturer ever, the main problem with this class is the personal attacks launched in class. Almost every member of the class was personally attacked in some form in the class by either intimidation or ignoring your questions/comments/concerns. If you decide to take this class, prepare to NOT be allowed to express your own opinions in class because you have “yet to obtain your Ph.D/masters/bachelors degree”.
And, one particularly brave student sounds like he had enough. Priya - to her credit - tells the tale in a blog interview -
[Priya:] I made the argument that in many cases science and technology did not benefit women, and if women were benefiting science and technology, it was an aftereffect. It was not the goal of science and technology.
…But there was one student who really took issue with this—and he took issue with this, and he made a very—I’d call it a diatribe, and it was sort of like, well—science and technology, women really did benefit from it, and to criticize patriarchal authority on the basis that science and technology benefited patriarchy or men, was not sufficient grounds for this type of feminist claim. And he did this with great rhetorical flourish; it was very invective, it was a very invective sort of tone. And I think what happened afterwards was that some people—I can’t name them, and I don’t know how many there were, but it was a significant number—started clapping for his statements. It was a very humiliating moment to my life; it was extremely humiliating, that my students would clap against me,
Priya goes on to describe how that student caused her to have some sort of breakdown that sent her to the (womyn-friendly?) hospital and miss a week of class. Personally, if I could find that student, I’d contribute to his college beer fund.
What took the crap to a level beyond a run-of-the-mill student teacher disagreement, however, was Priya’s truly bizarre response. She threatened a lawsuit in widely circulated emails to her class -
Dear Student:
As a courtesy, you are being notified that you are being named in a potential class action suit that is being brought against Dartmouth College, which is being accused of violating federal anti-discrimination laws. Please do not respond to this email because it will be potentially used against you in a court of law.
Priya Venkatesan, PhD
And she’s already promised a tell-all book -
[I’m] writing a book detailing my experiences as your instructor, which will ‘name names’ so to speak. I have all of your evaluations and these will be reproduced in the book.”
The Desi angle? As Harvard’s Crimson reports, that card was introduced by Priya -
Last week, a few students in the Dartmouth writing class “Science, Technology, and Society” received a nasty shock. When they checked their inboxes, they learned that their professor, Priya Venkatesan, was planning to sue them for discrimination. Later investigations revealed that she also planned to sue the College and several faculty members, not referring to any particular episode, but mentioning the “hostility” she felt during her time as a professor and saying that “maybe it has something to do with my ethnicity or my gender.”
Let’s be clear - there absolutely are real instances of ethnic and gender discrimination in the world. However, Priya’s screed is a fantastic example of the “race to the 3rd rail” caricature of the argument. When racism/sexism becomes a reflexive, defensive rush for cover, it raises the burden of proof for other folks in other cases where the argument might actually hold merit. Still, I suppose for Priya Venkatesan, PhD, there’s a certain consistency in claiming ethnic/sexual victimization when so much of her teaching is basically about… well… victimization.
[PS - it’s worth noting that the lawsuit appears to have been dropped…]
vinod on May 8, 2008 02:22 AM in News · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
How is she (threatening) to file a "class action" suit against these students? What's the (plaintiff) "class"? (It would have to be other teachers of these same kids . . . .) It's not even clear that a class action would be sanctioned against Dartmouth even if she has other disgruntled instructors of other kids--seems like a small enough group that you could just name them!
ROFL-squared to the whole thing. “Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct.” That sounds more like the Sokal hoax than reality!!
I wouldn't want to be Dartmouth's President now that this story has broken--can you imagine the parents/alums screaming on the phone--e.g., "what the bloody &*(&) is all that tuition money going for anyway--you don't even have a real professor teaching my kid--at these prices??!!--and it's not even a legitimate 'instructor' at that." Hoo, boy!!
Riduculous
From her book:
That is totally how I studied biology.
Whatever merit "science studies" has, I think we should be able to agree that it's best left for graduate seminars for interested parties, rather than stuffed down the throats of 18-year old Dartmouth undergrads! There are more than enough sophisticated topics in
"Science, Technology, and Society" to provide an interesting course without jumping down this particular rabbit-hole.
As a budding law student that makes it his business to study anti-discrimination law, she probably doesn't have a valid claim given the crumbling bedrock of such laws, particularly with a conservative court. I do think, however, that the dismissive tone in the article is uncalled for. It seems like your scorn of Dr. Venkatesan extends not from the nature of her claim, but what she studies and teaches - the social construction of science. Science is undoubtedly a human endeavor and though it has produced things such as the internet and airplanes, the way science produces knowledge that is socially contingent. Simply because industrial products can be created from scientific processes does not mean that science is not a human process rife with subjectivity. Further, I think your dismissal of Dr. Vekatesan's felt emotional trauma is absolutely insensitive. You, nor I, are in any position to judge how tough it might be to be a woman of color at an Ivy. To be perfectly honest, I think this article needs to be re-vamped, written by someone with more thoughtfulness to the issues presented.
French Narrative Theory?(What the heck is that anyway?) Science and technology do not benefit women? 'Scientific truths correspond solely to a social construct'? What planet is this lady on? I have no sympathy at all.
Errrr, can you spare a sympathetic thought for her students?! Look I don't think anyone is denying that there there are borders of scientific research where we don't really know what's going on, and so there are competing hypotheses, etc., and the latter may be driven by some pre-conceptions. But she seems to be coming with guns blazing at the very notion of scientific facts. Sorry, the latter do exist.
So the phenomenon of the Earth's revolution round the Sun is a social construct and not natural reality and such facts did not benefit women. Jaw Drops, Rolls Eyes, Collapses from my chair.
6 · vivek. said
Way to type that on your COMPUTER, commie! Go back to whatever wasteland we haven't destroyed in the name of progress you came from and have a soy latte or something, we've got some serious confusing of the issues to do here.
I'm simply struck by the hosility the professor has to any questioning of her theories by her students. Does she actually expect to be unchallenged when stating things that deserve to be argued about?.
This is a nice (but very detailed) account of what happened that was published in the Dartmouth Independent. The authors incorporates Venkatesan's POV, and in general, evaluates the issues in a balanced and non-dismissive manner. It doesn't look good for Ms. Venkatesan though.
6 · vivek. said
The main problem with theories that are not empirically grounded is that their proponents will rarely say, "aha, my theory has been disproved!" and call it a day. Hard scientists may have the same reluctance to give up their cherished theories, but in aggregate it is recognized that the process of disproving the theory has advanced the entire field.
With the science studies that priya was apparently teaching here (and yes i've been the victim of a terrible, hectoring, brook-no-questions-or-dissent prof too--hellooooo Hamideh Sedghi, where are you?) there is no empirical grounding and she should be happily open to attempts to further deconstruct what the primary deconstructor has done or question the value of that mode of inquiry (i.e. is it okay to criticize a prof if she says "whitey made insulin pump so whitey man can profit...the end.")
but as for writing it in a more see-no-evil/hear-no-evil way, I'm sure that will happen when the evil white aeroplanes drop all us darkies off at those shiny
airportsmass gravesThanks portmanteau for that link. It adds another layer to the discussion.
I can sympathize though I doubt that priya's going to get a fair deal from this point on. a realistic scenario has lowrey and his coterie publicly lamenting that the department favors minorities/ethnics/women over white males with superior skills and experience - even before venkatesan comes on board. priya's research does not endear her to her colleagues, and given her background [and high self-regard], she makes no attempt to blend in. the animus grows and priya finds herself alone in the department facing open hostility from various staff. her sense of moral uprightness doesnt stand her well, especially after the incidents where she calls into question the attention lowrey gives to the female researcher. over time, the feeling of helplessness grows - and priya's on the verge of a nervous breakdown. she lashes out at even benign questions - feeling this to be part of a conspiracy or systemic discrimination.
You may think this an overly sympathetic portrayal but I have seen folks in similar situations respond similarly over time. Their behavior grows more erratic and it feeds into the general perception that the person is a loose cannon. the tattle-tales make merry and the truly psychopathic colleagues make whoopee on the cadaver. i would profile priya as a chronically single person [having a partner makes one more attuned to compromise and white lies] who's consistently been top of the class or been working in an area so esoteric that there are few peers who have challenged her in the past. That said, it is remarkable she's got a new job so quickly. NWU is not a come-down. She must have pretty solid/unique credentials.
10 · Harbeer said
Actually you can easily gauge, in a quantitative way, how many of her students succeeded in interrogating othering ambiguities in the science they see all around them--count how many gave up all of their racist sexist geegaws and set out for a life of sustenance farming, off the grid, far far away from timely medical assistance.
The professor is out of touch with reality. Was she always like this or was there any incident that made her snap?
Whatever Ravi the Lurker. When I was your TA a few years ago I almost sued you :)
Lets put aside the contempt many of us (I include myself in this group) have for a liberal arts program in general. In addition
Forget for a moment, that she sprouts BS
Forget for a moment, that science is in a very hostile environment today, and she is contributing to the poison against science
Forget again for her moment that her lectures discourage students from pursuing lucrative, socially valuable fields and her refulsal to sort things out with the collegues belonging to those fields
Forget for a moment that she was boring
Forget that she felt offended and was hostile when students came to her for help, or wanted her to examine their work or just wanted clarifications
Forget for a moment, that she was unable to handle minor distractions when her job discription primarily ensures that she has to interact with teens
Even if you ignore all these, how do you explain the fact that the liberal arts professsor could not and would not, handle diffrent points of views in her class?
(P.S. To end on a happy note, I am hoping that she re-instates her class action suit and expands it. I also hope that she wins and that this shuts down all all liberal arts programs and forces students to select a real major in the future)
I read the full dartmouth independent article linked to by an earlier poster and now am completely convinced the professor is highly sensitive, paranoid and is somewhat unbalanced.
I mean, accusing a department head of having an affair with another professor "making bedroom eyes at her" in order to belittle her (Priya)?. Or complaining that an evaluation by a student was too long at "30 lines...like it was War and Peace?". Or thinking students were against her when one of them asked her to spell "Gattaca"? Or going forward, retracting, going forward and then retracting the lawsuit again?. I think the reporter tried to be balanced but the majority of the incidents, all described by Prof. Priya in her words, really put her in a bad light.
I guess I should take this as a sign, Desi(s) are growing as a group, that we have our own kooks.
13 · khoofia said
khoof, nice summary there, and that is exactly the impression i got from the article. she seemed to lack an ability to respond to hostile social cues in a professional and non-defensive manner -- and her resentment and martyr-complex only complicated the situation. that said, she is a research assistant at NWU, which i take it, is a demotion wrt to her current job.
i find it interesting that she was raised in a relatively small and what appears to be an isolated south asian community near poughkeepsie. i wonder how much her sheltered upbringing and attitude of complete diffidence and deference to authority figures (which the reporter and she herself attribute to her 'indian' upbringing) shaped her personality. she appears to be completely taken aback when she is not deferentially treated by colleagues and students, despite obtaining all the requisite credentials for being perceived as a figure of authority. now, i am not saying her ultra-desi upbringing is the cause for this fiasco, but that it certainly seems to have exacerbated her paranoid and lone-looney-artist personality issues.
interestingly, kids in the desh are also brought up with a deferential attitude toward elders and teachers especially, but the disillusionment sets in relatively sooner. kids become adept at masking their contempt toward teachers (this is a big generalization, i realize; but i def. am not saying that no cordial or respectful teacher-student relationships exist in india), partly because many view them as an unfair and less-than-thoughtful education system personified. but because marks matter so much, the continue the charade of deference. in my limited experience, i've heard pretty nasty (and unfair criticisms) things about teachers/professors back in india from those who eagerly sucked up to them in their absence. another thing that makes desi kids pretty ruthless and very competent in social maneuvering is the extreme and intense competition they are subjected to from a very early age. even kids who grow up in otherwise sheltered middle-class homes become quite good at handling backbiting and jealousy (i know this account of social sophistication does not quite gel with the FOB stereotype, but i do believe a different kind of social savvy works/is applicable in the context of the desh and here).
any thoughts?
So no student developed a crush on her?lol
Me thinks she needs to get laid and fast.
Priya Venkatesan may be academically qualified to teach a course. But the Dartmouth experience demonstrates that she does not have the temperament or skills to be effective in the classroom.I read somewhere that she is a "professor from hell" and I concur. Priya should be looking for a career outside the academe.
Just as a point of interest, I think what is being conveyed by this is that the explanation behind an observation is a partially product of its time. See Critical Realism
So in the case of the Earth revolving around the sun:
- Newton would explain it as an attractive force
- Einstein would explain it as the curvature of spacetime around the sun
- Lisa Randall would explain it in terms of strings in a braneworld.
As for Priya - isn't the whole point about a liberal education a chance to wrestle with ideas???
As a university instructor, I can concur with a some of the points in the article. While in grad school I took couple of courses in SST (Science, Society, and Technology). Interestingly, it was taught by historians, who also had advanced degrees in sciences. Postmodernism, constructivism, de-construction (Derrida, Focault, Spivak), and French critical theory did a fair bit of rounds in the class discussions. Many scholars were working biographies of leading scientists. But, most importantly, interdisciplinary work that particularly attempts to deconstruct science and scientific method is indeed received in a hostile manner. As such scientists, disdain literary theorists, historians, and other areas of humanities, but if one attempts to poach upon their fields with fancy French critical theory, I have no doubt it would be received poorly. The scientific bent of mind is such that one has to demonstrate methodological rigor, attention to detail, and analytical capacity. This does not mean that Dr. Venkatesan did not possess these abilities, it just that it is a poor choice to put her in a science lab. She would have been happy in an English department.
On the racism part,criticisms of accent, looks, color of hair, etc, yeah well get used to it or just ignore it or just use to your advantage (have you seen ratemyprofessors.com and professors strike back)?
On the students challenging you, also get used to it in programs such as Dartmouth other New England schools or at the Ivies or Ivy like. The strength of a teacher lies in their ability to use student comments to their advantage and learn to quickly adapt to criticism and comments. The instructor should have the capacity to create a comfortable environment for discussions.
Now that being said, it is clear from my own experience that many students are anti-intellectual, hostile in class, they challenge authority, put their feet up, come late to class, text-message throughout the course, or pop open their laptop and troll facebook or myspace, put their feet up, eat in the classroom as if they are in the school cafeteria, slurp on their drinks, blow their noses, make frequent trips to the restroom, dress highly inappropriately, pull the hat over their faces and take a nap, don't come prepared to classes, contest grades, turn in their assignments late...well, yeah these are just occupational hazards.
Hahaha - spot on. Also, a few years ago a colleague of mine came out of his office, shaking just after a student stormed out of the department. It turned out that he was almost physically attacked over a "C" that he had given the student. I had some familiarity with this student and he was, in the most objective sense, a bit loopy. Definitely a real occupational hazard some of us face!
from my days as TA, I can attest to that. some of it is youthful rebellion, but on those long summer days when one just wants to get through the afternoon and sleep out the pasta, the kids yakking at the back are just a pain in the ass*... plus there is an amazing amount of plagiarism happening at the 1XX course levels. to take portmanteau's comment earlier, for a person who grew up [hypothetically] in an environment that was deferential towards teachers, this may have been a huge shock to priya.
*while amardeep might be tempted to chip in on this thread - I would sincerely urge him to desist. steer clear.
>>But there was one student who really took issue with this—and he took issue with this, to criticize patriarchal authority on the basis that science and technology benefited patriarchy .. it was very invective, it was a very invective sort of tone. It was a very humiliating moment to my life; it was extremely humiliating,
Consistent repetition of key words suggests a lack of confidence and fear of being ignored or challenged.
>>Science and technology do not always benefit women...
So? They do not always benefit men either.
M. Nam
missed the smiley at the end. it came off as a little hostile. sorry yaar.
Professor Premodernist -- help me with my Lyotard? Will you uncover my Fruedian slip, so we can get past the Gropius-Johnson? Maybe I can be your (a)post-trophy wife?
I actually think science should be questioned in the manner that Vandana Shiva does, and agree with Thomas Kuhn that science is embedded in culture, but this lady seems a little paranoid.
As a Dartmouth alumnus, I do recognize that there is a strong contrarian streak in many students at our humble college. But this is a good thing. Dartmouth students don't accept everything that's told to them and, most importantly, professors are expected to teach, and teach well. Dartmouth is a COLLEGE (as opposed to a university), and professors get released often if they aren't up to par in their teaching, even if they're star researchers. It seems that Dr. Venkatesan was neither.
Dr. Venkatesan's reaction to student questioning is both ridiculous and disturbing. To threaten legal action against your students, simply because they don't agree with you, is unprofessional and immature. It seems like she suffers from lack of self-esteem and faith in her own ideas and work. What bothers me most is that Dr. Venkatesan is herself a Dartmouth alumna---how can she deride the very atmosphere of intellectual vigor that nurtured her own skills?
Vinod, thanks for the writeup - I'd not known the details earlier. All that MSM seemed to be reporting was that a professor was planning to sue her students, but no real details were provided.
As for my reaction to Priya Venkatesan: what does society agree to be the value of the log of ROFL to the base WTF?
Next she'll be claiming that physicists cannot model turbluent flows easily because they privilege (rigid male) solid mechanics over fluid (female menstrual) fluid mechanics.
vinod, i haven't read your entire pomo post but a very quick point.
so do economists who work strictly within the neo-classical model. see the work of sendhil mulainathan (wage gaps/racial discrimination) and claudia goldin (male female wage gaps) among various others. it is an obvious hypothesis, but when social theorists work from the same assumption you cry foul. unfortunately, pomo has come to mean an umbrella term for shoddy impenetrable writing. this is unfortunate because it lumps together so many clowns with real honest academics who have made important methodological contributions to social science (history/geography/politics/econ/anthropology) besides producing some awesome art, films, and writing. pomo is a label which needs to be dropped completely because it signals nothing but pretension, and automatically prevents honest engagement with a work that is labeled as much. unfortunately, venkatesan's work, at first glance, seems to be drawing forced analogies between science and literature, another example of *PoMo* drivel.
5 · vivek. said
This woman seems a bit over the top, and I'm not going to defend her specific views.
That being said, Science Studies has quite a bit of merit, although its only contribution to mainstream society has been the abuse of its term "paradigm shift," which is unfortunate. Vivek seems to be one of the only people here who gets the point of the discipline: No knowledge is objective knowledge, because language can never be objective. That doesn't mean that the earth's orbit does not exist, it means that it does not exist outside of our (always limited) ability to define it. When you say the word "earth", you aren't objectively describing the object, you are creating a concept based on a combination of your linguistic expression and the referent, which can never be separated. This doesn't mean you can't observe and learn things about the world within that scope, it just means they can never be completely objective, and so one should never pretend they are.
What this means is that "scientific development" can only be considered progress so long as a certain paradigm remains stable. When a paradigm is considered invalid, the knowledge it once validated isn't considered valid either, but that does not absolutely indicate development. The movement from horse carts to cars can only be considered development within a particular value system and paradigm, one that it is not necessary or "rational" for everyone to accept, which is where the importance of Science Studies comes in. When used well, it exposes cases where science imposes its paradigm in a violent and unnecessary manner, like in my psychiatry textbook which defines the history of the discipline as "developing" and "progessing" from "tribal healers" and "shamans" with their "to "lab-coat-clad doctors" and "psychopharmacologists" (ignoring that many of these older healing methods have worked and continue to work, and so do not truly represent a more "primitive" knowledge). That doesn't mean that modern science hasn't categorized more problems and solutions, it just means that there is no straight line of progress from those older methods to the modern, since both are based on completely different paradigms and ways of looking at the world (unless one externally imposes a paradigm that sets specific standards for development, which again, are not and need not be universal).
Science Studies is not a wholly dismissive discipline. One cannot escape paradigms, languages of thought, so of course, it is not productive to criticize every worldview as being flawed all the time. We need paradigms and language to live, and many of us enjoy many of the things that the modern scientific paradigm has created (cell phones, planes, ipods, whatever,) which is not inherently wrong. What it means is that the appeal to objective truth should be never be accepted as is, and that science should be more aware that can never escape subjectivity and ideology, because objective truth does not and cannot exist where there is human perception.
This is an idea old Indian philosophers of various stripes were throwing around ages ago, and to be quite honest, I can't see how anyone who claims to value reason (as we define it) couldn't agree.
Okay, I read some of her emails on IvyGate and, well, as one of the commenters on that site put it "I don't want to be an 'armchair psychologist'", but I am a bit worried about her. Those e-mails seemed strange.
On a side note - you can apply that literary po-mo jazz to the lab and someone will actually publish it? What is going on in academia these days? Only, these days is not coming up on thirty years! Oh, boomers, what have you wrought with your educational theories?
This is a bit extreme and I think there may be mental illness involved, but pretty much typical as far as attitude among the South Asian Left Oppression Studies specialists goes. At the school I went to Indian lecturers in the arts & social sciences were often alleging prejudice if they weren't put on the tenure track. Bravo to the students for challenging her and rejecting her nonsense. At 50k a year they owe it to themselves & their parents to be good consumers. You can get the same "brilliant ideas" at JNU for $1k per annum including room & board
It's a pity a weak minded woman like Priya is the face of any reasonable woman who might have a similar grievance in the future. I do think that there is a validity to exploring the narrative of science or whatever one calls it. I think one of my fellow readers here pointed that out nicely(better than Priya did in her name dropping paranoid ramble). Also I do think that there were a couple of students who did take advantage of her ethnicity and gender. I don't think they would have done the same with a strict authoritarian white professor. But she lost the ability to use that excuse when her behavior pretty much alienated the entire class and her problem is bigger than a few people emboldened to be obnoxious based on their perception of her gender and race and how they don't have to fear any retaliation from her.
Also, I do no understand why the university would have allowed this course to happen without any due diligence. And I do think that the head had no respect for this lady and pretty much underminded her by sitting in on the class and answering some dumbass question about how many Ts there were in Gattaca.
Having said that, this lady has no business teaching a classroom. If you are going to be as out of the box as she purports to be, one needs to have a quick wit and an ability to deflect potentially tense situations. When she is the one teaching such out of the box stuff, she should expect some hard questions and be prepared to answer them. And when she turns into Lifetime Movie psycho and starts naming students in writs, she needs to know it's time for her to get another profession.
She tries to have it both ways in her interview with Dartmouth. She starts off saying she doesnt have time to delve into certain things because she is so busy (and even includes a narcisstic reference to a book she is writing about her own undergrad studies, like anyone cares). But then she proceeds to delve into a lot of these things in great detail and at times contradicting her stated feelings.
I agree with #37 above. She maybe mentally ill and if not, have a serious personality disorder.
Here's a quote from anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher:
"...I have believed for some time that we are currently in the middle of a huge worldwide social change: Women are entering the job market almost everywhere and acquiring economic power. And along with their rising income, they are obtaining social and sexual power too. This trend isn’t new, of course. For millions of years women commuted to work to gather their fruits and vegetables and provided much of the evening meal; the double-income family was the rule; and women expressed a great deal of economic, sexual and social power."
What changed that status? A piece of technology called the plow.
Here's the point made in a lecture by Dr. Fisher on Ted.com (8 minutes in).
p.s. I'm lovin' UPS for mentioning Kuhn ; )
Just to give a little background on my prior comment: I am going to confess as being someone who used to delight in humiliating a bad teacher. I certainly do not ascribe to the same POV as Priya. It seems like she is an ABD. So I am guessing its not her environment but her parents that put that overly "deference to the teacher" outlook in her mind. SHe has a point about one thing. Students of my type do pounce on the weak when we get a chance. While I have individually taken it as a challenge to go after white male hardasses at times too, it is easier to get other people to go along with your line of attack if it's a weakling(the clapping incident). And a lot of the time, weakling is what the other students joining in perceives as weak. They are more likely to spot it in an Indian female than a white male guy of comparable demeanor.
But I do not give her slack because all that would do is point out why she was getting picked on so much when there are so many loopy professors who do not get attacked out of the gate. It won't absolve her of the fact that she is a bad teacher to begin with. If she was capable enough, she would have defused any incidents early on before it got to the point where she had the chair undermining her in the class.
In exploring or challenging the narrative of science one would be doing science. Science has always been open to challenge and improvement. What I find sleazy about the postmodernists is their attempt at classifying science as just another construct. In fact science is a discovery and understanding of what is already there. Strange and twisted woman indeed.
Hmmm, maybe I'm mean, but I never have discipline problems. Or, rather, I don't put up with any of that stuff. I'm kind of sad about the fact that some of my students seem a little afraid of me - I'm going to have to work on that. It's not good. Well, maybe a little bit of it is good. And I'm no white male. Woman of Color-itude hasn't really been a problem. Maybe I've just been lucky, or med students and residents are more, er, pliable :) ?
43 · Divya said
Read my previous post. Science makes claims to objective truth, which science studies does not make when critiquing it, which is the difference between them. Science is not and has never been merely "a discovery and understanding of what is already there." In fact, several scientific disciplines, such as those involving human perception and thought, would confirm this.
of course science is a social construct with a large subjective aspect. but i write this on a computer, and you are reading this on a computer. subjective & biased as it is it produces the modern world. who's preventing you from listening to the wisdom of the elders in your thatch hut after hours when it gets dark? science studies which get more respect if it didn't impinge on the awareness of scientists in publicity stunts like steve fuller supporting intelligent design (something he also did in the movie expelled). there's some real fruit to be picked in analyzing the structure of science theory and results; but most of the people who we here about are careerists looking to make a wave.
it definitely means that brown-folk have "made it" when you see some defenses of its more extreme excesses on these boards. the whims of the leisured class....
(choice that vivek is a lawyer; of course there's no truth, only an argument)
Well, if you are talking about Steve Fuller as the standard bearer for science studies, you should also evaluate biochemistry by the "contributions" of Behe, and mathematics by the proof for ID presented by Dembski. Extremists and kooks abound in every field. And yes, "most of the people we hear about" are indeed those interested in publicity, that's sort of a tautology.
Science has contributed to many, many advances, and no reasonable person can deny that. And arguing that anybody who takes advantage of these advances should not be skeptical of any claims made in the name of science is as dubious as the "if you think america is bad, go to india" chants that periodically erupt on this board.
props to NYC Akshay for Kuhn digested. I'm not sure I love what he says, but I am impressed by your quick-and-dirty job.
let's all be united in our contempt of the creationists! liberal artistes and engineurons -- bedfellows at last! hail the PoMoBio collective. Our coalition is powered by an irreligious love of Plan-B, a zealous embrace of alternative energy technologies, and our common yuppie predilections.
Let's make a facebook group already.
(after quickly skimming the comments...)
I've done some science studies work before, and her definition of it doesn't cover everything. The angle my university classes took (and I went to a science/engienering university) was to show science's impact on society--how medicine and technologies have affected cultures, societal views of these fields, that sort of thing. The field of science studies, as far as I know, isn't meant to be an alternative way to teach science--it kind of opens a window onto the "effect" side of the science "cause."
But that being said, French narrative theory in a freshman English class sounds like a bit much...as does she, in pretty much every way possible. Did she want her students to be mindless drones that didn't argue with a word she said? Man, at my school, we had to fight to get the engineering students to say anything because they weren't used to being able to speak their minds out loud! I can't imagine discouraging that in that sort of classroom setting.
She's not cut out to be a teacher, if she's going to freaking SUE HER KIDS for daring to provide opposing viewpoints. This looks like her one-way ticket out of the classroom, for sure.
Well, if you are talking about Steve Fuller as the standard bearer for science studies, you should also evaluate biochemistry by the "contributions" of Behe, and mathematics by the proof for ID presented by Dembski. Extremists and kooks abound in every field.
would you then contend then that the ratio of fullers in academic positions in science studies is the same as the behes? (not that dembski was kicked out of an academic association at baylor) the steve steve project documents how thin on the grown skepticism of evolution really is in science. what's the distribution of views among science studies? who is there to study science studies???
(i think it is fair to say that a fair number of tards cherry-pick from works such as kuhn's to prove that science is "just another superstition" [direct quote from an english grad student friend]. creationists do the same of course with scientists, which is why the NCSE exists. what's science studie's NCSE?)
And arguing that anybody who takes advantage of these advances should not be skeptical of any claims made in the name of science
we don't need science studies for skepticism you. that's what scientists do to each other (yes, i'm sure you knew that). in theory....
The question is how the hell did she get a job at Northwestern?
yep, political correctness is a myth
thank you vivek, nyc akshay and premodernist for being the only people around here who really have any idea what it means to be a critical thinker. for the rest, it's nice to know that the art of spouting-off is well and truly alive... (please note sarcasm)
After reading the numerous links provided on this page I've come to one solid conclusion: Dr. Venkatesan suffers from extremely low self-esteem and could benefit from therapy. I say this with all seriousness-- she's incredibly defensive, sees everything as an attack on her, and can't take any sort of criticism--constructive or otherwise.
I'm also willing to bet she had a crush on Prof Lowery and it hurt her not to be seen as pretty. This all has to do with her very frail ego.
1. The "deference to the teacher" outlook is not exclusive to the eastern world. A very white-American female English prof a very white-American male Geology prof I had during my undergrad education were equally as
tyrannicalexceedingly non-Socratic in their methods of education. So, I laud some of Venkatesan's students for being active consumers and thinkers rather than going through the motions of getting the piece of paper required to get a job.2. I was bullied as a TA for handing out bad grades, but I can discern the difference between kids jockeying for more points or being teacher-ignoring, cellphone-twidlling dumbasses and real harassment from them.
3. Don't forget that the rushed hiring of women and minorities occurs in the corporate world, too, which leads to crap down the road, for which the blame falls squarely on the employer. It does make things harder for all other women and minorities as we have to prove ourselves all the time. The irony is that this construct known as modern law may indeed benefit Venkatesan, but in utilizing it in such a manner, she has done a disservice to the women she claims to serve.
I went to NU... I don't think we need her kind there. Yes, students can be idiots. At the same time, do you teach to earn the adulation of the masses, or is it to educate those who want to learn and take them to another level in the future, even if you have to take some flack from other students to get there? Anyway, teachers who are less mentally stable than the students they teach--that's a mistake.
All you women dissing Priya are just jealous because she is way hot, and so smart that you can't comprehend what she is saying.
Abdul, and what of the men who are dissing Priya?
54 · wonderingwhy2930 said
in other words, those who agree with wonderingwhy2930 are "critical thinkers," which is particulary ironic b/c the critical thinkers in prof venkatesan's class (who have "caused subversiveness" in her words) are being taken to court. this post-modern defintion of "critical thinkers" reminds me of foucalts (i think) defintion of freedom of speech, which was freedom for speech for only speech that advances freedom, as he defined it.
58 · Abdul said
OK, what about men? :), are we just plain intelligent and can see through her stupidity? :P, heh heh.
i don't think that this woman's sex or ethnicity are primary factors here; i've known white male science professors who give off the same ticks. the main difference is that discussion in a science class is often generally constrained; even in an advanced "journal club" genre course there's only so many weird things you can say. science is hard, and everyone is wrong and looks stupid at some point (aside from the 0.001% of super-geniuses in a priori fields like pure math). that's life. luckily the victimization mentality is less ubiquitous in science because work needs to get done (though it's there too, i know people who have bumped up their grade via identity politics blackmail with professors, and PIs who are known not to take on females, etc.).
great thing about natural science: at the end of the day you can't explain it away when nature say "f**k you!" even lysenkoism had to cede to the ground at the end of the day....
62 · razib said
it's coming, razib.
We should be thankful she is not a regular reader of this blog. Imagine all the suing she would be doing if we took her arguments apart on any topic discussed here.
Razib:
Agreed, but at least statements in science and math are quantifiably right or wrong. (BTW, what do you mean by "a priori field"? I'm not familiar with the term). One may not have the data immediately, but one can at least devise and perform an experiment to verify a hypothesis. Half the statements that I read in postmodernist writings are not even wrong. In that light, I do not see a major difference between a statement like "There is no reality that is objectively knowable, and all scientific knowledge is what the society of scientists agrees on" and one like "Astrology can predict your entire life, as long as you don't deliberately go around trying to falsify its predictions".
Not all social sciences are bad, but postmodernism gives the good stuff a bad name.
importantly, a lot of the new fangled departments, like white-studies, womens studies, or critical race studies, are less departments than they are houses for ideologies. it wouyld be like having a capitalist studies instead of an economics department. you're not so much learning a subject matter as you are an ideology.
now the line between ideology and subject matter can be a subjective one. so just like a pre-descartian would not be allowed to argue that the world is an illusion in a physics class; dissent from post-modern axioms is similarly justified. that's probably where the professor is coming from.
add race or gender to the equation and you get a really explosive mix, as dissent becomes a dogwhistle for bigotry and the parameters for acceptable opinion really start to narrow. when derrick bell announced that "the ends of diversity are not served by people who look black and think white" i knew that allan bloom, who predicted political correctness, was right about the diversity movement: what is advertised as a great opening is really a great closing.
well, at least she didn't place a noose on her own door.
Agreed, but at least statements in science and math are quantifiably right or wrong. (BTW, what do you mean by "a priori field"? I'm not familiar with the term).
a priori means that you don't need data. classical modern mathematics is about proofs derived from axioms. the ROI for pure intellect in these fields is incredible, and people who got skillz got skillz. in a field like biology there is always a constant flood of new data and literature you have keep up with, so no matter how smart you are you'll be wrong on the margins, or be out of step with consensus.
as for quantification, that's a good & fair point. but...the reality is that studies contradict each other, you have to filter results through your set of priors, hunches and intuitions. science is subjective, just not randomly so. in other words, most science is wrong, but that's a feature, not a bug. a lot of scientific production is culturally conditional, but, over the long term it tends to beat random expectation & fashion & whim. that's because nature is real, not a social construct, at least in the operational if not ontological/philosophical sense.
there's a place for a genuine understanding of the sociology of science. but a lot of the people you hear about are jokers. like this individual.
well, at least she didn't place a noose on her own door.
that was delicious ;=) i called that! some of her defenders on this blog were going on NKVD. thank god conservatives own all the guns ;-)
she's dropped her law suit
http://gawker.com/385785/ivy-league-lawsuit-update
she's also a research assistant at NW : not tenured...no point discussing her
she's dropped her law suit
thatz cuz law is a construct.
This is hilarious, haven't students always been like that, specially freshman? Haven't professors always had to make examples of people and shown them who's boss?
I agree with whoever said she needs some self esteem or needs to get laid badly.
btw, she has an MS in genetics from UC Davis. in evolutionary biology at least that's a REALLY good school. what the hell happened? i might ask around if i know anyone @ davis who knows what she was like....
Reading that Dartmouth Independent story was kind of sad. Dr. Venkatesan clearly seems to be a high-strung, thin-skinned personality - sounds like the competitive world of academia and bratty college students* fueled all the worst parts of it. Not that she's entirely blameless of course. Her "let's all clap for the student who's unusually quiet today" stunt shows she's in possession of quite the nasty streak of her own.
*Not that they were all brats - judging by those stories I think a lot of her students were rightly pissed - but some of those stories I would never have dreamed of doing to my teachers. It seems like a negative feedback cycle: some kids were brats to Dr. Venkatesan, she grew hostile and defensive and alienated even MORE kids, which increased their rebelliousness, which caused her to melt down even more, etc... from what I've read she strikes me as having very little self-awareness.
the parents of the kids at dartmouth are spending A LOT of money per year for their education. i think that there is a sense of entitlement to getting the exact type of education YOU want when you're shelling out $50,000/year.
I agree with whoever said she needs some self esteem or needs to get laid badly.
this will come up on google really high. just remember that the person you are talking about is a person. i'm not going to say anything i wouldn't say to her face.
From Manju's link:
>>Valian ...also wants to alter the behavior of successful scientists. Their obsessive work habits, single-minded dedication, and “intense desire for achievement,” not only marginalize women, but also may compromise good science. She writes, “If we continue to emphasize and reward always being on the job, we will never find out whether leading a balanced life leads to equally good or better scientific work.”
I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was only in an alternate universe where people would be punished because they were successful. I had no idea post-modernism was so insidious.
M. Nam
I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was only in an alternate universe where people would be punished because they were successful. I had no idea post-modernism was so insidious.
don't worry. they need a monopoly to really affect change. remember that if fewer work hours does result in better research, well, so be it. if not, not. most research is crap; if there was a way to sort and reduce hours i think people would be happy. and just because tardz are voicing some concerns doesn't mean that they aren't on the side of the angels.
76 · razib said
I don;t know about the original poster. But I would say it to her face if she was my teacher and sent me an email threatening to sue me.
My last comment on this issue.
68 · Manju said
Umm, last I checked, there was suspicion but no proof that she had. But even if it was, one bad egg doesn't prove much, just like a small number of black success stories doesn't establish the absence of racism. Let me suggest that you might do better pretending to be objective while pushing a bell curve agenda for minorities, or genetics as destiny for women if you don't quote obvious outliers, but instead cite "scientific research" by Pioneer Fund proteges such as Jensen and Rushton, or something similar.
Given the examples and articles you cite, I think that your complaint is only that they are not your ideology.
Yes, so let's not knock the area of science studies. As you acknowledge, science is subjective, and there is a place for investigating its systemic biases. Also, there is a lot of work in science studies that examines the social impact of technology, not just the "assumptions" of science. And there is a clear space for that work too (eg. genetics, nuclear technology etc.)
If you actually look at who is part of the NCSE, there are a lot of social scientists, educators, and humanities types that are part of NCSE. And yes, without too much analysis, I'd be willing to guess that defenders of creationism and ID are more prevalent among non-scientists, than among scientists. But the numbers are probably likely to be really small in both communities, so it's not a particularly revealing statistic.
All that said, I agree that there is systematic intimidation against some viewpoints in the academy as the crusades against Finkelstein, Nadia Abu el hajj, Joseph Massad etc. indicate. Political correctness is also an issue in the restricted echo-chamber world of academia, for example, in the case of Michael Bailey. And there is a lot of nonsense in all areas of research, both in science and the humanities. But these do not obviate the need for these fields of study. Nor does citing bad outliers, which are the ones you hear of, almost by construction, make a sound argument.
Razib,
Maybe it's true that working fewer hours will produce better research - but that has to come from the individual !! What is she going to do - order the men to go home early?!! At least that's what it sounds like...
Reminds me of my first software job back in India, where "going home early" meant 10PM. We would have marathon programming sessions on the project, where, to win one had to exceed 72 hours non-stop. The thumb-rule was - if your speech is not slurring, then you're not working. Did we produce good software? Heck yeah!
M. Nam
i think that there is a sense of entitlement to getting the exact type of education YOU want when you're shelling out $50,000/year.
I'm thinking about stuff like correcting spelling errors on the syllabus in front of the whole class - what's the point of that except to show what a smarty-pants you are at the teacher's expense? More importantly, do you really think you're going to get a good return on Mommy and Daddy's money if you embarrass the teacher on day one? I'm not saying this as an absolute defense of Dr. Venkatesan, because her reaction clearly inflamed the problem all out of proportion, I'm just saying I can see where the behavior of her students might have been a catalyst for the crazy to come out.
81 · MoorNam said
I hate to state the obvious, Moornam, something tells me those marathon programing sessions took their toll.
76 · razib said
As per my post, I would have no qualms telling her that she could use some time on a therapists couch to work through her issues. I'm guessing that the person who said she 'needed to get laid' was joking as she seems to be quite wound up...
yr comments are one thing, but now i am really worried. can you pls let me know what software was at the receiving end of your logic so i kno to stay clear?
66 · pingpong said
post-modernism falls basically within the humanities, which are different from the social sciences.
manju, econ was an unfortunate choice as an example. austrian school, chicago school, lausanne school, supply-siders, monetarists, keynesians, reganomists, mercantilists, neo-marxians, heterdox, neo-ricardians, pro-SAPs/ant-SAPs, masonomists......you get my drift, don't you? don't take empiricists at their word.premodernist:
here's a real list of free-speech violations on campus, as opposed to your outliers.
86 · portmanteau said
no, it perfect port. all those schools are taught in the departments, leading to free-wheeling invigorating debates in the tradition of the liberal university. now you can argue that liberalism is itself an ideology and that would be an interesting meta-debate, but we have no choice but to choose, and i choose the liberal university over this balkanization b/c the suppression of ideas bodes ill for our republic...especially now that they are coming after the sciences with title 9.
54 · wonderingwhy2930 said
I have to agree- it was a treat reading vivek's, nyc akshay's and premodernist's comments. This woman obviously has issues, and how she has responded so far only serves to detract from her claims, but to completely dismiss her teaching experiences ("spell 'Gattaca'" isn't related to her gender/ethnicity, or highly offensive for a teacher? c'mon.) and to reduce a whole field of scholarship is a rather poor way of presenting her story Vinod.
here's a real list of free-speech violations on campus, as opposed to your outliers.
Campus speech has been assaulted by left leaning administrators and thats pretty indisputable and undeniable. However, hunting down of Pro-Palestine opinion in Poli Science Departments is not an outlier phenomenon. A close friend of mine and a political science graduate of Princeton (undergrad) and Harvard (phd) could only find work in Canada because of his political views on Israel. Unless you are a tenured professor, anti-Israel talk is not good for the career.
i don't know whether this is a personal issue or not but as a well-known feminist here I's like to put an end to this "she needs to get laid" or "she's crazy" speculation.
What she did was common among post-modernists and their gender/race studies fellow travelers, like the colorado college feminists who got conservative punished for parodying them.
in fact suppression of dissent is part of their ideology. post modernism is a combination of marx and neitzsche, and like marxism it rejects classic liberal formulations of freedom. it's a self-contained ideology that has all sorts of rules to protect it from criticism. for marx, dissent is a sign of being bourgeoisie, for derrick bell, you're an uncle tom, for radfems your a misogynist. speech codes are the first step in getting rid of this bigotry, which are often dog whistles that only the vanguard postmodernists can hear.
this goes well beyond any personal problems the prof may or may not have.
14 · Nayagan said
You seem to have some sort of condition that prohibits you from recognizing nuance, see things in a very black&white sort of way and think that everybody wants to throw the baby out with the bath water when maybe they're just suggesting a critical look at cultural assumptions. (Props to NYC Ashkay @ #35.)
37 · louiecypher said
Good "consumers?" I think you mean students or even "citizens," but "consumers?" Seriously?
88 · Manju said
so you're saying there is no dissent in the humanities? i was trying to communicate that ideologies/dogmas are prevalent in several pockets of academics -- to think that dogma prevails in only women's studies departments and critical studies departments is clearly wishful thinking. it happens in science departments (whole 'schools' tend to cluster around one position about how a scientific question might be resolved, or issues of methodological significance; eg the docs who thought stomach ulcers might be caused by h.pylori and people laughed at them for thinking that ulcers were caused by bacteria), it happens in econ departments (eg role of markets), it happens in history departments (explanations of the industrial revolution), it happens in english departments.
and in any discipline or department where there is a dogmatic stronghold, dissenters/mavericks/loons face real consequences for not toeing the line. sometimes sanctions turn out to be for the best, sometimes they are a mistake. for instance, my university was involved in a protracted battle about whther judith butler ought to be granted tenure or not. my school let her go. someone in the administration must be kicking herself after she became a pomo star. personally, i do not like butler's work (and agree with criticisms of her writing, esp the one by martha nussbaum) but having a star professor like that can really help a school in $$$ terms. especially because prospective undergrads want to fawn over famous/controversial faculty.