Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I have to agree with Sandefur that this professor deserves an award for lunacy. A Dartmouth professor is threating to sue her students for not being sufficiently in awe of her silly post-modernist theories about the world.
The latest spectacle is an Ivy League professor threatening to sue her students because, she claims, their "anti-intellectualism" violated her civil rights.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."
Here's what this poor woman had to endure:
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."
Oh my God! Your students would argue with your ideas? How ever did you survive, you poor sensitive creature? And gosh, why would anyone argue with this?
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."
While no doubt typing her lectures on computers which operate on well understood principles discovered by scientists. But silly me, the computer itself is probably just a "social construct" too. Or something. This is my favorite part:
After a winter of discontent, the snapping point came while Ms. Venkatesan was lecturing on "ecofeminism," which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out. One student took issue, and reasonably so - actually, empirically so. But "these weren't thoughtful statements," Ms. Venkatesan protests. "They were irrational." The class thought otherwise. Following what she calls the student's "diatribe," several of his classmates applauded.Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was "fascist demagoguery." Then, after consulting a physician about "intellectual distress," she cancelled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation.
Perhaps the next paper she submits to one of those fashionable and ridiculous lit-crit journals can deconstruct this drama queen act of hers. Gee, there I go being a "fascist demagogue" again.
Politics
Comments
It sure is cool that one can specialize in "science studies" without having to learn much science.
Posted by: Zeno | May 27, 2008 9:57 AM
Please tell me this whole thing is a stunt to demonstrate the chilling effect an overly litigious society has on the free market of ideas. Maybe? Possibly? Gah!
Posted by: Abby Normal | May 27, 2008 10:13 AM
"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." (Emphasis added.)
I'd be very skeptical of anything like this from the Dartmouth Review. It's a training ground for lying right-wing pundits.
That's not a slam against Dartmouth, just the Review.
Posted by: Paul W. | May 27, 2008 10:15 AM
Your quote from the article made it clear, but it's worth noting explicitly just to marvel at it: A teacher introducing students to the rigors of expository argument was shocked when her students argued with her exposition.
Perfection should always be admired...and this is perfectly stupid.
Posted by: BobApril | May 27, 2008 10:24 AM
So she expected students at Dartmouth wouldn't ague with her? Where the hell did she think she was teaching?
I don't know about her social construct "hypothesis," but this statement is accurate:
teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth
You could, I think, describe the relationship between science and "Truth" as being "suspect access" in the sense that facts are NOT Truth. Science has an asymptotic relationship with Truth. I don't think for a second that's what she meant, but she hit upon a basically accurate statement despite her best intentions.
Posted by: Josh | May 27, 2008 10:25 AM
As the author of the article notes, at least the students cared enough to "stage a rebellion," instead of just tune out and slog through. Bravo for them!
This is the kind of literary crap that I encountered in some English classes (mostly from other students, but from some professors).
Posted by: Kristine | May 27, 2008 10:32 AM
I hear Shippensburg's looking for good faculty...
Posted by: anon1234 | May 27, 2008 10:42 AM
OMG. Please tell me this was a Sokalism. If not, oy.
Posted by: PalMD | May 27, 2008 10:43 AM
I'm amused, as a literary scholar. On a moment's reflection, she'd realize that writing a narrative that will "name names" is futile because of the Barthesian death of the author following on the linguistic turn. We can't trust her narrative on Derridian grounds, as mentioned above, but we also can't trust it on Foucaultian grounds either: her narrative will amount, I am almost certain, to a defense of the power system status quo in which the professor has power over the students and the attendant privilege of being in powerful group.
Posted by: Michael | May 27, 2008 10:50 AM
Ed:
Two points: first, do consider that the source for the story seems to be The Dartmouth Review. It has, so to speak, a dog in this fight, and so perhaps holding off drawing anything but tentative conclusions might be wise until corroboration from other sources can be gotten.
Second: presuming the reporting to be accurate, I would love to have students challenge something, anything I say in class. They are, and have always been [and I've been at it for 4 decades now, at 3 ESUs [Enormous State Universities] in three states in three different regions of the country], painfully docile and deferential. It's depressing. I sometimes ask why no one questions, no one challenges when [usually in one-on-one conversations after class with a very small number of them], they tell me that in HS they were punished for disagreeing with a teacher. I used to dismiss this, but I've heard it now from enough students... and good ones... that I no longer do. At the very least, they believe that they would be punished in HS if they spoke up.
Part of the problem is, most students seem to believe... were they taught this?... that disagreeing with someone is impolite. That it's flat out rude --- the very act of saying "No, I think you're wrong about that. I disagree" constitutes rudeness. With a class full of students thinking that, serious discussion becomes damn near impossible.
Posted by: flatlander100 | May 27, 2008 10:53 AM
Paul W - Are you suggesting that The Dartmouth Review and Priya Venkatesan have "a suspect access* to the truth"? Surely not? /Sarcasm -;) DJ
*Perhaps a cat flap, or a suspiciously ajar door, or something like that.
Posted by: DIngoJack | May 27, 2008 10:55 AM
Josh, please excuse my lack of erudition, but could you expand on your comment about facts not being Truth. It seems to be that if a fact is indeed a fact, then it is by definition true, and it would follow that it must be part of any greater empirical "Truth" one would care to describe.
Or is this just simplistic naivete on my part?
Posted by: gary l. day | May 27, 2008 10:59 AM
I agree to watch the source. It looks like it is overstated (though it does appear she made some of the statements attributed to her).
BTW: She's no longer at Dartmouth, has dropped any intent at a lawsuit and is now a research associate of some sort at Northwestern.
Posted by: szqc | May 27, 2008 11:08 AM
flatlander:
"Part of the problem is, most students seem to believe... were they taught this?... that disagreeing with someone is impolite. That it's flat out rude --- the very act of saying "No, I think you're wrong about that. I disagree" constitutes rudeness"
Actually I think that the problem lies a little deeper than that. They are taught (by example most times) that there is no civil way to disagree with someone. They certainly aren't taught to back up a disagreement with a sound argument or to craft their message in such a way as to change someone's mind. Most of the arguments I heard (yes, even in classrooms) was that one side was "right" and the other was "wrong", with all the evils that being "wrong" entailed. Among children who were constantly rearranging their social power structures, being "wrong" publicly was a fate worse than death. It could be that a child-like approach is needed when dealing with children, but the fact that 80% of my teachers totally eschewed nuance didn't serve me well when I moved on from there into real life.
I didn't really learn about the need to support contrary points with logic until I started on the bulletin board systems (to show my age) discussing all and sundry.
Wow, rambly resopnse, sorry about that. My point was that they aren't taught that there is an alternate to rudely disagreeing. You either fall on the side of the angels or you are a nazi-puppy-kicking-meanie who doesn't understand why you are so horribly flawed and wrong.
Posted by: kodiak | May 27, 2008 11:21 AM
Gary,
Hi. Okay, to address this I'm going to put on my dork scientist hat for a moment. I beg everyone's indulgence. Your statement would be correct if facts were by definition true. In science, this is simply not the case. I know that in the public mindset, people tend to talk about facts as though they are true (capital T). And sadly, yes, I'm aware that secondary (and sometimes even f-ing college) science classes even teach them that way. It's not really correct. In fact, I would go so far to say that is hinders their science education to be taught such (more on that later if you want).
Facts are observations with a specific error attached to them. There are always error bars on observations. The "error bars" attached to a given observation can be pretty large, or they can be absurdly small to the point where the observation is "effectively true" for most discussions (e.g., the statement "that squirrel is sitting on the ground"). The squirrel statement might appear to be a solid and concrete fact, but if you think about it for a second, there is still error associated with it (much of it associated with the precision of the observation).
Just some examples: Is there more than one squirrel in the view of the person that the speaker is addressing--is it 100% possible to assure no confusion with respect to which squirrel is being discussed? What does "sitting" mean with respect to a arboreal rodent (does this particular tetrapod actually "sit" and is there zero ambiguity related to that term)? What does "on the ground" mean (how much of the squirrel is in contact with the ground and how much needs to be for the animal to actually be defined as sitting)? Of course the observation is also temporal in nature--the second the squirrel moves the statement no longer applies. The "fact" is no longer true. So, in order to reduce the error on the statement, a qualifier of time would have to be applied. And then there is the question of taxonomy--what exactly is a squirrel? Is it a gray squirrel? A red one? A black one? What apomorphies are used to define the organism under discussion and how precise is the definition? Moreover, taxonomy is always plastic--phylogeny more so. There is no way to ensure that we will always classify squirrels in the manner in which we currently do.
So, those are some errors associated with the observation "that squirrel is sitting on the ground" that I just pulled out of my ass as I wrote this. There are others. In general terms, the observation is "true" for most discussions, but the statement isn't TRUE, mostly because the statement doesn't qualify which level of precision it is being made at (I'm not even sure how you would do that--what constitutes a level of precision). Science is asymptotic with respect to TRUTH. Error never completely disappears on an observation, and even if it were possible to account for all of it, in science all facts have the potential of being overturned in the face of new evidence. In the creation/evolution war, people are often fond of writing statements like: "Well, evolution IS a fact. It is a fact that we change over time in the fossil record. HOW that change came about is the THEORY of evolution." Well, "yes," but what few people tend to acknowledge is that even this observation (we see that life has changed over time) is tentative according to science. We must always be open to the possibility that we've completely f-ed up our concept of radioactive decay and superposition and the entire foundations upon which the geologic column is based and that this fundamental observation could be overturned (thus requiring major adjustments to ToE or falsification thereof). It is likely? Absolutely not. Does it remain possible? YES. Science is asymptotic with respect to truth.
Okay, I'm gonna stop there for the moment. Sorry about the length? Did that make sense to you or did I confuse my own explanation?
Posted by: Josh | May 27, 2008 11:36 AM
Her interview with the Dartmouth Review is informative. She sounds as if she's just out of her league as a teacher (or, at least, shouldn't have been using postmodernist texts in a freshman writing course), and couldn't deal with the class. Occasionally she brings the crazy though:
Posted by: strech | May 27, 2008 11:39 AM
Here are reproductions of her own emails to her students. Among other things, they border on the illiterate.
Incidentally, although she certainly doesn't have much understanding of the philosophy of science, unlike all too many "science studies" people, she does have some actual knowledge of science. She has an M.S. in genetics.
Posted by: Bill Poser | May 27, 2008 11:46 AM
Hilarious. An English major attacking the very idea of Science. Never mind that science is just an easy organizing word to describe any disciplined approach that begins with basic observations and progresses slowly from there towards analytic conclusions.
Foucault and Derrida are doofs anyway, or at least the way their theories have been used are doofic, seeing as my reading in regards to those two has been minimal. It's nice to see people expanding on Nietzsche's claim that how information is presented and passed on serves a social purpose, and that viewpoint isn't necessarily reality, but taking it so far as to deny reality, or that one can actually "know" anything isn't much different than some movie scientist building a death-ray and then cackling, mad and power-drunk, that he'll RULE THE WOOOORLD!!!
The deconstructionist approach is a tool to be used only in regards to specific subjects, like taking apart the ideas involved in womanhood, or how we think of knowledge (something which scientists have been taking apart since Copernicus first disagreed with Aristotle). Trying to disprove the Universe is just kooky.
Posted by: Julian | May 27, 2008 11:47 AM
Bill - Could you please check the link I can't seem to get it to work. Thanks -DJ
Posted by: DingjoJack | May 27, 2008 11:48 AM
As an aside, I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out how the religious right has co-opted deconstructionism to attack scientific prinicipals, most notably the theory of evolution, with arguments pretty similar to what this professor was putting forward.
Posted by: Julian | May 27, 2008 11:50 AM
DingoJack - here's a corrected link for Bill's post.
Posted by: strech | May 27, 2008 11:53 AM
Julian - "The deconstructionist approach is a tool to be used only in regards to specific subjects..". Is it? Or is it simply an approach used by tools (and, frankly, not the sharpest ones in the box). :) DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 27, 2008 11:53 AM
Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | May 27, 2008 12:03 PM
Thanks Strech. Boy is this woman ever a delusional narcissist! -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 27, 2008 12:07 PM
She should join the Discovery Institute.
Posted by: Ericb | May 27, 2008 12:14 PM
Alan Sokal has written some good stuff on how right wingers adopt postmodernist relativism to support their disinformation strategies. Postmodernists' claims that truth is culturally relative and constructed by social groups is a recipe for fascism, if you ask me.
However, let's not let our antipathy for postmodernism cloud our judgment. Something about that story definitely sounds fishy to me. I'd be willing to bet that we're not getting the full story of what happened with this teacher. And let's be fair here: if this were a teacher trying to do a class on evolution, and was being harassed by obnoxious creationist students, while I would still think she was grossly overreacting I would have some sympathy for her. The religious right has, in a typical Orwellian move, redefined "critical analysis" to mean obnoxiously badgering educators and spreading falsehood. Just what kind of "questioning ideas" were these students engaging in--the legitimate, honest kind or the disruptive, abusive kind?
Posted by: Wes | May 27, 2008 12:23 PM
wes - I quote from an interveiw between The Dartmouth Reveiw (TDR) and Priya Venkatesan (PV) see if you think she bark mad.
Yeah, Priya Venkatesan, isn't projecting or anything -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 27, 2008 12:46 PM
This woman believes that her students shouldn't be allowed to disagree with her? And she's calling them fascist?
Can we say "projection", children?
All I can say is that it seems to me like she needs to get a grip, grow up, and realize that people disagree all the time without anybody suffering "intellectual distress." I mean, jeez, if I had a meltdown every time someone disagreed with me, I'd have been in a padded room long before now.
Posted by: Elaine | May 27, 2008 12:46 PM
Opps sorry about the long, and pointless, post. Strech beat me to it.
But seriously, delusional, paranoid and narcissistic.
Definately DI material, if they could stand her craziness. -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 27, 2008 12:52 PM
Yes, they were taught this. Everyone seems to have been. This belief is a full-blown memetic plague.
(Hell, look at the response to "the God delusion" and similar works with less provocative titles).
Posted by: Azkyroth | May 27, 2008 12:55 PM
[quote]Ms. Venkatesan was lecturing on "ecofeminism," which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out. One student took issue, and reasonably so - actually, empirically so. But "these weren't thoughtful statements," Ms. Venkatesan protests. "They were irrational."[/quote]
Well, i'm irrationally and empirically pointing out that scientific advancements have financed my paycheck for 15 years now, in addition to a number of smaller things like keeping me alive during surgeries and infections, offering me reproductive choices*, and generally made me a very happy individual.
And if my job did of it's very nature benefit only my male coworkers and not me and my female, wouldn't the best approach be small change from the inside, affecting the system at the source? Or does that make me a sellout?
I'm not certain this professor has thoroughly researched her hypothesis with actual data points from actual female scientists.
*please no debates on the effectiveness of that. It is only one example.
Posted by: Gelf | May 27, 2008 1:07 PM
>Thanks for ruining my lunch. It took them years to ditch >Barbara Foley.
>Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | May 27, 2008 12:03 PM
Sorry Mustafa. If it makes you feel any less emunctory, I work in central Canada where we have a crate load of "cdesignpropentists" running around as university profs and senior Ph.D. students (including one in a Biology-related dept). Not quite as bad as having Barbara Foley or PV - but you have my sympathies.
Posted by: szqc, FCD | May 27, 2008 1:13 PM
DJ,
I'm not defending her. I'm merely pointing out that there's probably more to this story than what we're getting, and that people's attitudes towards her might have been different if she were teaching something other than goofball postmodernism.
Posted by: Wes | May 27, 2008 1:47 PM
She's nucking futs. From the Amazon page on her book, entitled Molecular Biology in Narrative Form *snark*:
Book Description
Molecular Biology in Narrative Form is a groundbreaking, interdisciplinary study that shows a connection between molecular biology and French narrative theory, and, from a unique perspective, bridges the gap between two disciplines that seem mutually exclusive. With many new insights on the link between science (in the form of DNA, a set of codes) and literature (in the form of language, another set of codes), this book looks at modern experimental science within the framework of semiotics. Priya Venkatesan reveals the extraordinary parallel between the work of scientists and the work of narratologists who develop narrative paradigms and analyze literary texts. Molecular Biology in Narrative Form will be a useful resource for scientists and literary theorists interested in the epistemological workings of science, as well as, anyone that desires to explore the linkages between scientific theory and literary analysis.
[We briefly interrupt this quote so that Barn Owl can regain consciousness after a hypoxic fit of laughing and sneezing]
About the Author
Priya Venkatesan Hays received her Ph.D. in Literature from the University of California, San Diego, and Master's of Science in Genetics from the University of California, Davis. She currently holds a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. She has published extensively in journals on literary analysis and molecular biology.
Holy postmodern guano, Batman!
*off to the PubMed BatCave, to check on those extensive publications in molecular biology....*
Posted by: Barn Owl | May 27, 2008 1:49 PM
Wes - I'm not impling your sensible, "There could be more here than meets the eye" approach, is wrong, quite the contary. I'm just saying you're a better person than I.
She just NUTS (just my opinion) -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 27, 2008 1:56 PM
Both the Review and the WSJ have a vested interest in making her out to be a typical ivy tower crazy. She doesn't appear to necessarily disagree with students questioning ideas, or the ideas taught, but says "they'd argue with your ideas". I can certainly see cases when this could become unacceptable and "subversive".
Even if it was the course content, rather than personal views they disagreed with, there comes a point when if you are unhappy with the course content it is your obligation to drop it or put up with the basic premises and soldier on. I disagree with homoeopathy (as all sane people should) but were I to enroll in such a course excessive questioning/disagreement/argument would surely be unacceptable.
Posted by: Lev | May 27, 2008 2:10 PM
Hey, people, I'd go REALLY SLOW on bashing this woman and assuming that the Dartmouth Review has it remotely right or honest.
Read this:
http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/summer07/html/point_of_view.php
Notice that she's saying she was "inculcated" in social contructivism, the reigning "mantra" in Science Studies, and that
She is not a mindless social constructivist kook---she's critiquing social constructivism, based on actual experience doing science.
She also talks about the "much-bandied about" term of "postmodernism."
If I had to guess, I'd guess that she got a batch of those smart-aleck right-wing know-it-all anti-elitist Dartmouth students who would not shut the fuck up and listen to the distinctions she was making. The didn't want to listen to her saying some things called "postmodernism" are stupid and others are not. They'd just criticize her for talking about postmodernism at all, act like their opinions should get equal weight to the teacher's, and she lost control of her classroom.
I'm as hard-nosed a scientific rationalist snob as the next teacher-scientist, and I'd give this particular woman the benefit of the doubt. She might be a kook, but if so, I'd guess she's not quite the kind of kook that she's being made out to be.
By the way, I know folks who have had run-ins with batches of Dartmouth Review-affiliated agitator assholes, who think they know everything because they've read Harold Bloom and are the defenders of Western Civilization against all forms of moral and intellectual decay. You do not want to be in that position, being set up in your classroom and vilified unfairly in public.
Posted by: Paul W. | May 27, 2008 2:37 PM
flatlander wrote:
As Azkyroth points out, this is standard in liberal religious circles. Through the years I've been in several real-life Discussion Groups which purported to be about asking challenging questions, pushing the envelope, and exploring ideas in life and spirituality with no inhibitions.
However, it turned out that disagreement -- even tactful disagreement -- was considered "disrespectful." It's not supportive; it's judgmental. It inhibits free expression.
I was told: "Don't say 'I think you're wrong.' Don't say 'I disagree.' Say 'I respect what you believe, and here is where I think differently.' Offer your view, don't try to impose it."
When I tried to explain the concept of honest debate to them, I was mostly met with looks of chagrin or bewilderment. How gauche of me. Debate is rude and competitive. We're ALL winners.
Perhaps the common thread here -- and with the students in flatlander's example -- is the sense that NO issue matters as much as someone else's feelings. Asking others to support their opinion makes it seem like you don't trust them, or think there is something wrong with them. It's never about the ideas, it's never about right or wrong, true or false: it's always about the people, their feelings, and celebrating our differences.
This may be spilling out of 'matters of taste' into other areas.
Posted by: Sastra | May 27, 2008 3:04 PM
I would not jump to that conclusion. Given that she's a critic of simplistic social constructivism, what she's actually saying may make perfect sense to scientists, once you know the lingo.
There are interesting parallels between textual analysis and figuring out things like evolutionary genetics. Maybe not interesting enough to you to float your boat, but not stupid.
For example, if you look at the techniques developed for sane Biblical exegesis, drawing on a variety of lines of evidence, there are definitely parallels to reverse-engineering the evolution of the genome.
(I actually know a computational linguist who's developed software that's been used for both kinds of purposes, with minor modification.)
That's the kind of thing that can sound utterly goofy if you don't know enough detail, and perfectly reasonable when you do.
Given that she's a critic of social constructivism, the main utility of her work---if I'm right that it's not kooky---may be in legitimating genetic science to humanities types. If she can show that techniques of DNA-and-fossil analysis are analogous to techniques they understand and respect tremendously for linguistic-and-historical analysis, they are more likely to accept that the enterprise is sound, and not just a way of validating some dead white males.
The biggest and best-known success of textual analysis was in conclusively showing that the Bible is an evolved mishmash from multiple axe-grinding sources with multiple stages of redaction and editing by later axe-grinding sources. If she's comparing genetic science to that, that's a great thing.
There are a whole lot of "postmodern" humanities types who see that as one of the greatest paradigm-shattering, progressive events of all time. They'd have a hard time saying that the earlier view of scripture and the later one are just "different master narratives" on an equal socially-constructed footing. If her analogy works, they'd also have a very hard time rejecting evolutionary genetics as just another white male hobby among many.
If she's doing something like that, we should be very happy about it.
Posted by: Paul W. | May 27, 2008 3:06 PM
It's entirely possible she could be onto something with her critiques of social constructivism but at the same time have serious issues that impaired the ability to teach or handle academic life. Wouldn't be the first.
Posted by: tguy | May 27, 2008 3:42 PM
We can't trust her narrative on Derridian grounds, as mentioned above, but we also can't trust it on Foucaultian grounds either
Michael - that made me laugh! (BTW, she believes in names?)
Posted by: Kristine | May 27, 2008 3:55 PM
Really, does anyone have a good handle on when, how and why this nonsense of "disagreement=rude" happened? The whole everyone's opinion is the same and it's all a matter of taste? Frankly I've had it with that shit, and I'd like to know if there is somebody that I can point to and blame for it. And sadly I guess it's some group of us liberals that is to blame for it but damned if I know which.
Posted by: Coriolis | May 27, 2008 4:19 PM
If science is a social construct then the applause the student who showed Ms. Venkatesan up received is ample evidence that she's nuts.
Posted by: Lycosid | May 27, 2008 4:20 PM
WTF?![interrobang x 50]?! Is there any connection between this woman and the known universe? This sounds like a whole lot of "mental masturbation" as one of my profs used to call it, and everyone knows it's rude to masturbate in public! (The prof in question once told a very long-winded and very bad guest lecturer in a seminar [and I quote]: "Quit playing with yourself." That was it for the seminar - 80 people were gasping for oxygen and wiping our eyes for the next half hour.)
Higher Criticism FTW! The Jesus Seminar RAWKS! But then I guess you'd expect me to say something like that - I'm a heretic, descended from a proud line of heretics.
Posted by: themadlolscientist | May 27, 2008 4:25 PM
I agree.
I also think that even if that's true, the situation might have been much worse for her than the Dartmouth Review would want to let on.
The Review is a notorious training ground for right wing "ratfuckers," who set out to make their "enemies" look as bad as possible by any means necessary. Dinesh D'Souza got his start at the Review, and serves as a model. That should tell you something.
The Review is supported by right-wing culture warrior foundations. That should tell you something, too. They pay money to train assholes to lie. (IMHO, of course.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_Review
I can easily imagine those folks consciously conspiring to shut her down by "just asking questions" all the time, instead of letting her make her points. (If you've ever debated multiple creationists in real time, you'll know what I mean.)
I've been in a somewhat similar situation just once in my teaching career, over something not actually very loaded, and without anybody really having a vendetta against me. Usually I love questions and thrive on them, but that once I had to say "I'm the professor and this is my class, like it or not, and you will shut up and listen, or I will throw you out." Eventually that worked out fine. Once people understood my approach, the self-appointed censors with a "clearly better approach" realized they were off base, and we could have productive Q-and-A.
If I were up against the Darmouth Review guys, talking about something actually loaded, I doubt I could have salvaged that situation.
Given the subject of her research, I can easily imagine things getting out of hand in a big way.
Suppose, for example, that she was doing exactly what I talk about above---using Biblical exegesis and the destruction of the traditional scriptural paradigm as a precedent and positive example, to make an analogy for understanding genetic science.
And imagine a class of largely conservative, mostly Christian students, with a handful of Dinesh D'Souza wannabes in it. Holy cow.
I know wouldn't want to try to teach that stuff at Dartmouth, and can easily see how things could go way south in a great big hurry, with conservative donors gleefully fanning the flames, etc.
I have to guess that there's a lot we're not being told about this story.
Posted by: Paul W. | May 27, 2008 4:26 PM
Please read what I posted before. Apparently, she's not saying that---she's on our side, saying that science is not socially constructed.
A lot of people are jumping on the Dartmouth Review's bandwagon, who should know better.
Posted by: Paul W. | May 27, 2008 4:30 PM
Paul:
The chance that this person is into serious textual analysis/criticism are remote: hardly anyone in English departments studies this sort of thing anymore . . . even fewer people in the "theoretically sophisticated" mold.
HOWEVER: You do seem to be correct, she isn't a science is just a social construct person at all, and the Review is completely wrong to imply that she is.
Posted by: Oran Kelley | May 27, 2008 4:55 PM
And rat neurons predict the stock market.
I know I really shouldn't dismiss her ideas without knowing more about them. But the premise just seems so silly. So I'll laugh now and find out later if she's Galileo or Bozo the Clown.
Posted by: Abby Normal | May 27, 2008 4:56 PM
A couple of fun facts somebody just reminded me of:
National Lampoon's Animal House was inspired by experiences at Dartmouth, where the Greek system is just hugely important. If there's anyplace that's a bastion of privileged conservative white male frat boys, it's probably Dartmouth.
Stephen Colbert's fictional persona went to Dartmouth and "wrote for the Dartmouth Review." That's no accident.
I wouldn't jump on a Dartmouth Review bandwagon any more than I'd take Stephen Colbert at face value.
This is Dispatches from the Culture Wars after all; shouldn't we be a wee bit more paranoid? :-)
Posted by: Paul W. | May 27, 2008 4:58 PM
So it seems like she isn't in the category of "science is a social construct". That doesn't change threatening to sue students as being pretty whackjobby. Even if she had to deal with crappy students she could presumably establish some sort of rule like "15 minutes of lecturing, then I'll take questions and then repeat". Moreover, her comment about two ts referring to "tenure track" is genuinely crazy.
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | May 27, 2008 5:00 PM
Point taken, Paul, but what about the Dartmouth Independent? I understand that's a nonpartisan pub - and they have an article on her, too:
"One female student was a nose-blower," says Priya Venkatesan, who, until just a few weeks ago, was a professor in Dartmouth's writing department. A 1990 graduate of the College, Venkatesan spent the better part of her twenties earning a Masters in Genetics and a PhD in Literature. But those were different days. Now, Venkatesan finds her thoughts occupied by that student who "incessantly disrupted class with her nose-blowing." Or the one who interrupted her lecture on bioethics with "a real evil look that made me feel very uncomfortable." Or the one who loudly declared that Lyotard was "cheesy."
(Man, I haven't read Lyotard in a while - I might have to take that book out again, just for curiosity's sake.)
I looks like this woman felt a lot of "oppression" while still a student at Dartmouth:
According to Venkatesan, Lowrey told Richardson that her "beauty will attract people to her poster" at the conference (Venkatesan further alleges that Lowrey later "made bedroom eyes" at Richardson when the two entered Venkatesan's bedroom to get their coats during a party at Venkatesan's house, a look Richardson apparently returned with a smile). Venkatesan submitted a formal complaint about the incident but withdrew it when she determined that a complaint against her boss could put her job in jeopardy. When Venkatesan told Lowrey that she was uncomfortable with his comments to Richardson, Lowrey apparently "went into a rampage," accusing Venkatesan of "wreaking havoc wherever (she) goes." Venkatesan recalls Lowrey telling her that he called Richardson pretty because she was pretty. She also remembers Lowrey "slamming a bunch of coke bottles and files into a garbage can during this rage." Insisting that "inappropriate displays (between Lowrey and Richardson) were always present," Venkatesan concludes that the two were having an affair and were using it to "make (her) feel belittled."
I mean, really.
It does seem that Tom Cormen put her though unreasonable paces in the writing of her grant proposal, which he ultimately denied, but she was also a disorganized instructor.
Venkatesan claims that if students had approached her with requests for more feedback or justifications for grades, she would have happily granted them, though she admits that she may have been somewhat less inclined to help students who she felt didn't respect her feedback. When one student asked for comments (via her preferred method of e-mail) on a rough draft, though, her February 21st (two weeks after her leave of absence) response was four lines long:
Strengths:
Good use of references
Weaknesses:
confusing thesis statement
When the same student asked for feedback for his third essay a couple weeks later, Venkatesan responded in a March 6th e-mail, "Do you have any specific questions I can answer?" When the student responded that he would just like the paper graded and returned, Venkatesan e-mailed the class that she "just realized you need feedback prior to handing in your last essay--so I will be returning essays on Wednesday." Venkatesan claims that her attempts to return the papers were stifled, however, when Tom Cormen demanded that she return her school-issued computer, which she had the essays on, two weeks before the end of the term; Venkatesan claims that she then lost the ability to return the essays (it is unclear why she did not just print them using the school-issued computer and grade them by hand).
I think this is a reasonable and thoughtful article that attempts to be objective:
The applause from the students was inappropriate by any measure and is the epitome of the mob-mentality that young students can exhibit when lumped together. One might disagree with Venkatesan's conclusion that "things are going on in this school that are very troubling and disturbing," but one certainly should be able to at least understand how Venkatesan came to the conclusion that a class may have been more wary of applauding a student who argued with a white male professor. It seems reasonable that we should at least make an attempt to understand what caused an alumna to want to change all her prior publications to list her current institution, Northwestern, instead of the College she once loved.
That being said, those that approach Venkatesan's story with more skeptical eyes are not without good reason. She claims she is "not trying to be vindictive," yet, during my interview with her, she wasted no time giving the names of the offending students, even though I did not ask for them; in this way, she certainly lends credence to those who think that she is using a frivolous lawsuit to garner press attention which she can then use to badmouth certain students.
Posted by: Kristine | May 27, 2008 5:27 PM
If these accounts are accurate, I'm not so sure that teacher deserves so much our contempt as our pity. I can't help but suspect that she's genuinely mentally or emotionally unbalanced, and is in need of real psychiatric help.
Posted by: Carlo | May 27, 2008 5:32 PM
Okey-dokey....
I graduated from Brown the year before Venkatesan graduated from Dartmouth. At the time I was an undergraduate, Lit-Crit and semiotics (the French theorists etc.) were fashionable at Brown, and I would have thought, based on Dartmouth's reputation for being the most conservative of the Ivies, that such a thing as "Theory" would be anathema to the Big Green.
By the time I finished graduate school in the mid-1990s, "Theory" (yes, I put it in quotation marks, because from what I read of it in my chosen field--history--it was being used to cover up the fact that its practitioners really had nothing original to say that could not have been said with more intelligible and less alienating language) was all the rage. It's one reason I got out of academia.
That being said, I don't think this kind of material was appropriate for a freshman comp class, even for teaching critical reading and writing. Venkatesan, IMHO, as an untenured professor, should have reserved this kind of methodology for any mid-level or advanced lit classes she was given to teach. Sad but true that junior faculty are kind of stuck in conventional molds until/unless they get tenure. If Venkatesan knew this and went ahead and taught advanced material to a freshman class anyway, she should not have been surprised that the powers that be didn't take kindly to her refusal to play by the academic rules.
Posted by: slavdude | May 27, 2008 6:05 PM
Oran, you may well be right that it's unlikely she was teaching the particular kind of thing I used as an example. I was just saying that from the high-level information that's all we have to go on, there's no reason to assume she was teaching bullshit.
Kristine, thanks for the link. I agree that seems like a much better article. I don't really know anything about the Independent, but at least it doesn't have negative credibility to me, like the Review.
I tend to agree with Carlo about pity being a more appropriate response, if there's any truth to all of this. I don't think it has anything to do with postmodernism per se, or (especially) social constructionism. We should not be jumping on that bandwagon.
Posted by: Paul W. | May 27, 2008 6:13 PM
Firefox tells me it does not know how to open that program, because the protocol ttp is not associated with any program. HTTP, perhaps?
Posted by: Skwee | May 27, 2008 6:14 PM
Yes, the initial "h" got cut off when I cut and pasted the url. Just stick it back in. Or use the corrected link that another commenter provides a few post after mine.
Posted by: Bill Poser | May 27, 2008 6:53 PM
Yeah, it sounds kinda like that Gould guy and that Dennett guy arguing about who has or hasn't been seduced by a simplistic narrative of "progress" or "gradualism" in evolution. What clowns.
:-P
Posted by: Paul W. | May 27, 2008 6:54 PM
I didn't notice the second link. Sorry, Bill.
Posted by: Skwee | May 27, 2008 6:57 PM
My first thought when reading this was: Another person named Priya who has gone off the rails!
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | May 27, 2008 7:44 PM
The bit about her comments on social constructivism is clearly quote mining on the part of the Dartmouth Review. This is how the Review/WSJ quotes it:
Here's the real quote (from Paul W's post linked above), in context, with the quote-mined sections in bold:
That's a quote-mine worthy of the slimiest creationists. Here she is criticizing social constructivism as being too dogmatic, and the Dartmouth Review is taking her words out of context to make it look like she's endorsing the very views which she is attacking.
Hence, I trust the Dartmouth Review about as much as I trust William Dembski. If they're willing to misrepresent her in this instance, they may be willing to do so in other instances as well.
Paul W. makes a good point. After reading some of her writing, some of it seems actually rather sensible. She doesn't seem to be an adherent of strict social constructivism. I think it's possible that she was merely teaching about social constructivism as a point of view some people hold, not endorsing it, and the students were having none of it. If that's the case, she has a legitimate beef. I teach philosophy, which of course entails teaching about some views which students (and myself) will find objectionable. If a person can't understand that learning about something isn't the same as endorsing it, that could lead to problems. It's a similar problem to what we run into with the Bible curricula--people not seeing the difference between teaching about a viewpoint and endorsing the viewpoint.
However, her behavior does seem erratic and the people suggesting that she might be emotionally or psychologically unstable probably are onto something. It really does sound like she is a very difficult person to get along with. That would factor into why she was unable to keep control of her class. None of what I'm saying should be construed as me saying her lawsuit is right or her behavior acceptable. But we shouldn't be jumping all over her, either. And we certainly can't trust the Dartmouth Review or the Wall Street Journal on this topic.
Posted by: Wes | May 27, 2008 9:03 PM
Oops. In my haste in my post above, I attributed that quote to the Dartmouth Review. That quote was actually from the Wall Street Journal. Either way, it's a completely bogus quote-mine. In the above post, for "Dartmouth Review" read "Wall Street Journal". My bad. That's what I get when I type faster than I can think. :D
Posted by: Wes | May 27, 2008 9:10 PM
Sounds like this person probably does have some mental or emotional problems.
It sounds like she is paranoid and has a persecution complex and misinterpreting almost everything the people around her do and say as a slight against her.
I know a troubled person that is like that.
Posted by: jchayne | May 27, 2008 9:39 PM
Michael, your comment made my day. Brilliant!
I'm not a literary theorist, but just to be clear:
- Science is one academic discipline out of many, and each discipline has its own methodology and process. It makes sense to go up one level, and study the "meta-theory of academic theories" (known as "theory" for short).
- It stands to reason that this study grew out of the study of literature, because all academic disciplines have it in common. No matter what the field you're studying, a thought experiment is essentially a story. Scientists don't often appreciate how large a role science fiction plays in science; it's how science-minded people work out the non-scientific (e.g. social, economic) implications of what they do.
- It makes sense to investigate where a claim comes from and examine the context in which it is made, regardless of what the claim is and who makes it.
In other words, this stuff is useful and important, but it's people like Priya Venkatesan who give the field a bad name, because they don't even try to understand what they are studying.
Posted by: Pseudonym | May 27, 2008 10:57 PM
Pseudonym,
Please read my recent comments and especially Wes's last couple of comments.
This woman has done exactly what people here are criticizing her for not doing---she HAS gone to work in science to get a feel for what science is REALLY like, and she HAS changed her views from the social constructionism she was taught.
She has been shamelessly quote-mined to make it look like she's saying something she's not---she's saying something more like the OPPOSITE.
She may be a bit paranoid, but I'm starting to wonder if it's entirely unreasonable for her to be a bit paranoid.
I'd sure hate to get quote-mined, and made to look like I'm teaching the flaky views that I'm actually criticizing, on the op-ed page of one of the biggest national newspapers.
Whatever else is going on, this woman is being nationally humiliated for views that she explicitly does not hold.
Unfortunately, Ed is contributing to that. I think a partial retraction may be in order.
Posted by: Paul W. | May 28, 2008 12:23 AM
"Ms. Venkatesan was lecturing on "ecofeminism," which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out."
Thanks for the glib misrepresentation of ecofeminism. For a start, that sentence makes little sense because the patriarchy is 50% female. It's false. Ecofeminism does not hold that science leaves women behind... if anything, science and women's rights are deeply and happily intertwined. Ecofeminism in particular is greatly bolstered by evolution which observes that humans are not fundamentally distinct from other lifeforms.
Ecofeminism is a new and underdeveloped theory. While some dipshits have gotten hold of the word and try to promote biological determinism ('women are closer to nature' bollocks, which has feminists balking), the bulk of ecofeminists (e.g. Valerie Plumwood tradition) are mostly concerned with the parallels between relations of domination between male/female and human/nonhuman, and with the ways in which we justify the so-called natural order in which humans exploit and mismanage the rest of the world. It's basically environmentally minded feminist-based critical discourse analysis.
I bet that the student who 'took issue' would also have taken issue with the idea that patriarchy exists, or that environmental problems exist.
And thankyou to Paul W, you could not have put it better.
Posted by: jess | May 28, 2008 3:15 AM
Another thought - who argues in a lecture? As great as 'intelligent discussion' is, lectures aren't really the place for it. Lectures are for soaking in as much information as you can, and occasionally asking for clarification on something you find difficult. They are not for voicing any stupid question that comes into your head (how many 't's in gattaca? wtf?) - tutorials are for that sort of thing.
Moreover, what freshman is even *capable* of presenting an argument that a professor (or anyone who has finished their undergrad) can't easily deal with? It's highly unlikely that these students happen to be undiscovered geniuses who geniunely confounded the confused, psuedo-intellectual woman professor with a chip on her shoulder (which is how she is represented in the piece). More likely they are a bunch of annoying trolls who loudmouthed and disrupted their way through the sessions.
Posted by: Jess | May 28, 2008 3:33 AM
Is it a coincidence that her name is an anagram of "Ye peasant knave"? Is someone pulling a Sokal here?
Posted by: Amadán | May 28, 2008 6:33 AM
If this is true, exactly how is she different from right wing religious fundtards that believe their view of reality is correct regardless of the facts?
Posted by: anevilmeme | May 28, 2008 7:08 AM
Jess -
Having read all of the articles and interviews, I think you're misunderstanding the classroom context. This wasn't some large lecture hall, it was a small discussion seminar on creative writing. This wasn't Social Sciences 175 - Ecofeminism. It was Writing 5 - basic creative writing class that all humanities/soc sci students probably had to complete. The professor was allowed to choose a particular focus.
From the transcript of the interview with the Dartmouth Review, I would also guess that any freshman worth their salt should have been capable of presenting an argument that would confound her.
Posted by: Klobouk | May 28, 2008 7:18 AM
Ed
I know I'm coming in late but I can't thank you enough for finding this story and leaving it up for me to find. This has brightened my day.
Brayton J. Cameron
Posted by: Brayton Cameron | May 28, 2008 8:59 AM
It's more like a mathematician, talking about evolution, Dembski perhaps.
I'm sure that parallels between molecular biology and French narrative theory exist. I'm just highly skeptical that examining them together will yield anything new. Second, even if there is something useful to be gleaned by examining the two disciplines, the mere juxtaposition is humorous. Fried ice cream is delicious, but the concept sounds ridiculous and makes me chuckle.
Posted by: Abby Normal | May 28, 2008 9:36 AM
Klonbouk - I wasn't presuming that the course was about ecofeminism, just saying that ecofeminism isn't 'science hates women'.
It's hard to see how theories on scientific discourse and feminist/applied linguistic perspectives are entirely inappropriate in a course on expositional writing. However I agree that the problem may have been that the material was too advanced for first years - obviously for most of these students, anyway.
I read the transcript too. The lecturer describes in the interview that she was discussing a feminist perspective on scientific discourse and scientific argumentation and a male student got up and declared that women do benefit from technology, patriarchal authority is great so how dare you critique it etc, using his rhetorical tone and loudness to override the lecturer and elicit dudely applause. That's not 'confounding'. That's 'confronting', and, judging by her strong feeling of humiliation and intimidation, probably bullying. When someone obnoxious and bigger and whiter and louder than you, backed by a bunch of his frat brothers, gets up and starts drumming up applause arguing against something you are tangentially mentioning, it's shit, and inappropriate in this type of setting, especially if it's an ongoing pattern of behavior. My 17 y/o brother does this sort of thing to me if I mention something his brain can't handle; because he is bigger than me and louder than me he can put up a fight which would have a naive observer convinced that he was right, even if he's talking out of his butt. So I have empathy for this small eastasian woman in a class full of entitled male youths. Maybe she should learn how to deal with know-it-alls - and maybe know-it-alls should shut the eff up once in a while.
Posted by: Jess | May 28, 2008 9:48 AM
So does this mean that David Horowitz is wrong, and students are not being easily brainwashed by the "liberal" ideas of their professors?
I guess we don't need that "Academic Bill of Rights" after all, eh?
Posted by: Joe Max | May 28, 2008 10:18 AM
This situation sounds like a perfect storm of the worst possible components for a classroom: a university where an ultra-conservative subset of students with a sense of entitlement is encouraged to be belligerant, a teacher without enough experience or emotional stability to know how to manage a class and conflict with students, a subject that is ripe for over- and mis-interpretation, a right-wing media happy to quote-mine to score points, and an alumni organization in the middle of its own politically-motivated power struggles. There's plenty of blame to go around, I think.
What surprises me more than anything else is that this kind of thing doesn't happen more often. Recent Ph.D.'s, either as post-docs or assistant professors, are commonly hired solely on the basis of their scholarship, without much thought about their training as teachers before they are hired and without much mentoring once they begin. Add to this today's socio-political environment where discussion of ideas is less about finding truths and more about scoring points (often for the purpose of gaining power). The relative scarcity of stories like this is truly impressive.
Posted by: Steve T | May 28, 2008 12:20 PM
Part of the problem is, most students seem to believe... were they taught this?... that disagreeing with someone is impolite. That it's flat out rude --- the very act of saying "No, I think you're wrong about that. I disagree" constitutes rudeness.
There's a variety of factors influencing this, most of which predate PoMo and New-Age spinelessness. First there's the feeling that one goes to college to get good grades in the right classes in order to get a good job, not to actually learn or develop new ideas. Along with this is the notion that actual learning doesn't matter as much as getting the credentials. Then there's the widespread suspicion -- largely justified, and not just WRT to librul profs either -- that professors just don't tolerate open criticism or argument; you note what they say, spit it back in the exams, get your degree, get a real job and forget it all. (My dad told me stories of college geography teachers using outdated maps of the Pacific islands, and flunking Pacific War veterans who tried to correct them (the vets appealed to the Dean and got the Fs corrected).) Furthermore, some people just grow up among people who really don't tolerate adult debate, or never themselves learned how it's done.
Wes: thanks for pointing out the quote-mining incident.
Posted by: Raging Bee | May 28, 2008 1:27 PM
Abby Normal:
I thought you were going to mention Jason Rosenhouse for a minute there.
Paul W:
OK, I shall retract any statements about the professor in question until I've had a chance to see what she's actually saying.
Posted by: Pseudonym | May 28, 2008 10:44 PM
Every once in a while you will run into someone who is educated beyond his/her intelligence. They are invariably supremely unaware of their shortcomings.
Half the people in the world, by definition, are below average intelligence. A few of them are dangerously overeducated. And yes, as has been pointed out, they are TOXIC.
Posted by: cobalt | May 29, 2008 12:00 AM
I applaud your fascist demagoguery, sir!
Posted by: Dana Hunter | May 29, 2008 6:04 AM
This woman is to be pitied. There are a lot of teachers out there who really could or perhaps should sue someone, over what goes on in some schools. Nervous breakdowns, the lot.
On the topic of questioning what the teacher says: I've been looking at SCIENCEDAILY, where headlines sometimes say things like, "Trees Learned to do This or That"; or, "Biology Designed This or That"; or, "Species Learned to do This or That". We know what the contributor really means, he just phrases it "correctly".
My Father was a bit eccentric: he could dowse for water and do it accurately within the constraints of the method. He also would say that trees and vegetation can think. He didn't mean it quite literally, I suspect. If you cut up many trees, and fell many trees, and study them - yes, they are remarkable. They counterbalance themselves, store food, hold onto their bark with little pointy protusions, heal their own wounds. That's less than what the editors at SCIENCEDAILY and so on imply. They allow that trees can do algebra and even quantum physics.
Perhaps it would be a good idea if people from the science camp stopped employing verbiage a little reminiscent of the unfortunate persecuted female professor. It would lessen the chances of documentaries such as EXPELLED being manufactured. Trees, biology, and evolution, don't sit in on lectures and do comprehension tests. I'm confident you won't sue me over that statement.
Posted by: Philip Bruce Heywood | May 29, 2008 9:04 PM
Perhaps it would be a good idea if people from the science camp stopped employing verbiage a little reminiscent of the unfortunate persecuted female professor.
Who, in the "science camp," are you talking about, exactly?
Posted by: Raging Bee | May 29, 2008 10:20 PM
"I applaud your fascist demagoguery, sir!
Posted by: Dana Hunter | May 29, 2008 6:04 AM"
Applause is always welcomed. Thanks!
--cobalt
Posted by: cobalt | May 30, 2008 1:55 AM