My own private student manifesto or a few thoughts on drilling
A quote of the top of my head (getting into the habit of compulsively referencing interesting quotes I come across), but when one looks for a research subject, one should look for questions that trigger, that make one uneasy and pose even more questioning.
It is the approach cultural theorist Stuart Hall proposed and applied half a century ago. When explaining the reasons for the emergence of cultural studies in the UK in the crossroads of 1950s and 1960s, he said what was driving him and other founders of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham was the need for an answer what was post-war, post-colonial Britain and what was that umbrella term 'British', under which millions of people were huddling.
Slowly, with some detours, I am threading my thoughts through the hypertext and the dusty corridors of the library which seems to be preoccupied with drilling rather than providing conditions for peaceful scholarship. (Speaking of which - the Neverlanders built the country on the water, but I am not sure why they don't come up with an idea to carry construction works during the night in educational institutions, just like the road workers do, for instance.) On the other hand, scholarship is anything but peaceful and I think this is how we (particularly students) should keep it.
A number of complains have been hovering above Drift in Utrecht lately, where majority of the classes OGC students are enrolled in take place. My naivety that whatever is from the West is innately progressive, thought-provoking and challenging various status quo has been shattered a number of times lately. Juvenile hopes of a girl from European suburbia. However, I am not suggesting the superiority of our Alma Maters - oftentimes they claim profound history, yet they could definitely work on their present. Obviously, over there, in the far East of the Western world, in the plateaus that for decades remained within the footnotes of the former Soviet Union, much is influenced by the factor that is not an issue here, in the Neverlands, at least nowhere as near an issue as it is there. In other words - the finances, that mostly, quite frankly and sadly, are singing romances. But let's leave the East for the meantime and focus on the West.
There have been a number of complaints during the past block among my fellow students and I enjoy the fact that the content and the quality of the studies are open to discussions here - at least there are certain professors who understand that the ultimate threat of education lies in stagnation. Yet these discussions could be much more feisty and I wonder why only a number of students try to stir debates and show the initiative in implementing changes. When a respected professor in front of 60 research master students used the word 'negro' a month ago, nobody questioned her on the usage of the word in the auditorium of one of best European universities. Latter on I found out the professor came from a well-to-do family. She said the 'negro' was her cook. Some professors emphasise we should aim to become public intellectuals, but we don't have the guts to question matters among 50 people or so.
On the other hand, some professors still wonder whether we should aim to become public intellectuals. As a friend of mine said yesterday, here we are discussing epistemologies, while a million of children in Kongo are facing disease, hunger, sexual abuse and recruitment by armed groups.
The owner of a health shop asked me a few days ago whether I will become part of a movement when I finish my media studies. 'What movement?' I asked. He thought I was studying journalism and I tried to explain in plain words that it is not that kind of media I am studying. 'So what can you do afterwards?' A seemingly simple question, yet whenever I face it I think that I probably won't invent the cure for AIDS or cancer and might not produce a very utilitarian scholarship. The more I think of the answer, the more I understand that the question is drilling to the very core of my brain and soul. And I believe this is exactly what we ultimately should engage in - drilling. It is the act that does not and should not have geographical restrictions. Because the West needs it just as much as the East does. Peaceful scholarship doesn't exist.
It is the approach cultural theorist Stuart Hall proposed and applied half a century ago. When explaining the reasons for the emergence of cultural studies in the UK in the crossroads of 1950s and 1960s, he said what was driving him and other founders of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham was the need for an answer what was post-war, post-colonial Britain and what was that umbrella term 'British', under which millions of people were huddling.
Slowly, with some detours, I am threading my thoughts through the hypertext and the dusty corridors of the library which seems to be preoccupied with drilling rather than providing conditions for peaceful scholarship. (Speaking of which - the Neverlanders built the country on the water, but I am not sure why they don't come up with an idea to carry construction works during the night in educational institutions, just like the road workers do, for instance.) On the other hand, scholarship is anything but peaceful and I think this is how we (particularly students) should keep it.
A number of complains have been hovering above Drift in Utrecht lately, where majority of the classes OGC students are enrolled in take place. My naivety that whatever is from the West is innately progressive, thought-provoking and challenging various status quo has been shattered a number of times lately. Juvenile hopes of a girl from European suburbia. However, I am not suggesting the superiority of our Alma Maters - oftentimes they claim profound history, yet they could definitely work on their present. Obviously, over there, in the far East of the Western world, in the plateaus that for decades remained within the footnotes of the former Soviet Union, much is influenced by the factor that is not an issue here, in the Neverlands, at least nowhere as near an issue as it is there. In other words - the finances, that mostly, quite frankly and sadly, are singing romances. But let's leave the East for the meantime and focus on the West.
There have been a number of complaints during the past block among my fellow students and I enjoy the fact that the content and the quality of the studies are open to discussions here - at least there are certain professors who understand that the ultimate threat of education lies in stagnation. Yet these discussions could be much more feisty and I wonder why only a number of students try to stir debates and show the initiative in implementing changes. When a respected professor in front of 60 research master students used the word 'negro' a month ago, nobody questioned her on the usage of the word in the auditorium of one of best European universities. Latter on I found out the professor came from a well-to-do family. She said the 'negro' was her cook. Some professors emphasise we should aim to become public intellectuals, but we don't have the guts to question matters among 50 people or so.
On the other hand, some professors still wonder whether we should aim to become public intellectuals. As a friend of mine said yesterday, here we are discussing epistemologies, while a million of children in Kongo are facing disease, hunger, sexual abuse and recruitment by armed groups.
The owner of a health shop asked me a few days ago whether I will become part of a movement when I finish my media studies. 'What movement?' I asked. He thought I was studying journalism and I tried to explain in plain words that it is not that kind of media I am studying. 'So what can you do afterwards?' A seemingly simple question, yet whenever I face it I think that I probably won't invent the cure for AIDS or cancer and might not produce a very utilitarian scholarship. The more I think of the answer, the more I understand that the question is drilling to the very core of my brain and soul. And I believe this is exactly what we ultimately should engage in - drilling. It is the act that does not and should not have geographical restrictions. Because the West needs it just as much as the East does. Peaceful scholarship doesn't exist.
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