it's academic, my dear love toy

[lobelia321]

I just posted this i a comment but it occurs to me that it might make a pithy post, also. So: waste not, want not, I say, and recycling (comments) can't be bad for the planet! This is to do with recent academic fan debates wot i have to admit, i have only followed at second hand. Which does not stop me from having views on it, of course!

I am puzzled by this notion of 'influence and rhetorical power'. One part of me nods and thinks, of course, because I have a Ph.D. and teach students in a university and occasionally give research papers, I am so much more articulate than the common rabble out there in my local supermarket. Another part of me wonders where the reality of all this comes from. Teaching students means I constantly have to school my words and simplify them so that they can understand so I don't seem to be wielding much rhetorical power -- although I do like to think I am moulding young minds, hah, but I'm not sure that's what the ranters have in mind. I teach at a crap university. I get paid less than the local area manager of McDonald's (where's the influence?). My department was closed down so I get to talk to fellow-academics in my discipline maybe once a year, if lucky, and the other academics in my institution talk about anything but high-falutin' stuff: it's all about marksheets and retention figures and recruitment drives and re-sit statistics.

I do like to talk clever but is that because I'm an academic or is that because I'm me, and because I'm me and I love words, I chose this profession to begin with? (Only to wake up disillusioned 15 years later...) And I can talk mighty clever with people who are not academics at all, and a lot of those are on my Friends list, and they are very rhetorically persuasive and witty.

Also, I love novels and fiction (duh, why else be in slash?) And most novelists are not academics (although some are, and why not?) But all novelists, be they academic or not, are persuasive and rhetorically sophisticated.

As to influence? *sighs* That seems to be another kettle of fish, not to do with academe at all, but with the whole BNF thing. Which requires blood, sweat and tears, obsession so that you put in the time, and a network as wide as the world. People cleave to BNFs, it seems to me, because they love them. It's not some evil mysterious 'influence'; it's fans actively choosing to follow that person around because they're getting loads out of her. And once they stop getting loads out of her, they either become her friend and stick around, or they flit off to other pastures. And what's wrong with that?

I am having an academic identity crisis!! I've been having it for years! Will it ever stop???

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

I'm glad you're asking yourself this question. I was upset about the return of that debate, because I've been (ab)used as an "academic" for the last weeks in a RL "workshop" - and yet I'm against those celebrating the poor beleagured academics online now, because to me it's the same dynamic. I refuse to be written off with a lable like that. Getting through terms and papers and having a title doesn't make anybody automatically smarter or better with word than anybody else who hasn't done that. What I know and think and read came from before, beside and after my studies, and to claim I'm only the way I am because of having a degree makes me so mad. *jumps off soapbox again*

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

Completely off-topic here, but whoever is in your icon is adorable. I often feel like that, myself.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

I can't believe I can't find - the exact panel, but it's from "Der Tod und das Mädchen", which I just found online and in English as well.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, what's a rl 'workshop' without academics? Was it a writing workshop or summat like that? And are you an academic, as in holding down a job at a research-based institute of tertiary education?

I think that university education isn't the only means to make you smarter nor better with words but I'd get very hopeless if I thought my job made no difference at all. So I have to continue to hope and believe that yes, what I'm doing all day does make a bit of a difference to some of my students, and that they will actually be somewhat better with words at the end of their degree. :-)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

No, it was a punative measure by the dole office, and the other participants were mostly cleaners, couldn't speak the native language let alone use a computer, so I was pointed out as a degree not making any difference, but in a sly subtle way.

[msilverstar]

I think it's because academics tend to be fluent and even verbose in opinions. And within those long paragraphs, acafans use very specific terminology, which seems esoteric and and daunting to people who have never met it before. (Henry Jenkins is so long and jargon-y that I get bored really quickly)

So when some acafans post their opinions, other fans are often left saying "but, but, that's not what I meant!" or "I was talking about why the story is so hot," and it's a clash of cultures.

It's certainly not your responsibility to not intimidate people, but some people feel that the language and approach of some acafans is so intimidating that they are shut out, overwhelmed, or trivilaized.

It just occurred to me that part of the issue might be the implication of "teacher" that goes with acafan, and other fans resenting perceiving themselves as students in fandom.

Does that make sense to you? I find some acafen annoyingly pedantic, and others charming and most of them in between.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

even verbose
Oh, we're verbose all right. *g*. You can't shut us up, that is true. Otoh, in fandom I've met quite a few non-academic verbose people as well, so it's not confined to the profession, *g*.

I'm not sure if every fan who also happens to hold down an academic job irl is also an 'aca-fan'. An aca-fan, to me (and I hate that word so much, it makes me want to sick up), is someone who lets their academic identity bleed into their fandom one, so that they write about fic and publish papers on fandom and offer university courses on online communities, that sort of thing. I did that once, with my analysis of slash, but I never showed it to anybody who wasn't in fandom.

It's a funny thing. When I first stumbled into fandom, I was very embarrassed about my alter ego as a university lecturer. I once betaed a fic and the author who turned out to be a twenty-something college student, said, wow, that was such a detailed beta, I felt I was being betaed by my professor! I was too embarrassed to say that I could be her professor.

Later, I grew more relaxed about this, as I discovered fellow academics in the fandom. But it took a good while.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

*munches chocolate cornflake cakes*

:)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's about hits that nail on the spot.

You know, I watched The Mighty Boosh for the first time on Thursday!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Head. Hits that nail on the head.

Don't know if nails have spots. G-spots??

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Stop that! I can tell when you're about to start slashing nails.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I'd rather be a hammer than a nail. Yes, I would. If I only could.

That must be one of the stupidest pieces of song lyric to be composed in the twentieth century.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Along with 'the world is just a great big onion'.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

I watched The Mighty Boosh for the first time on Thursday

Oh really? And what did you think?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Very moreish!

Is it true that the Vince Noir actor and the shaman actor are brothers in real life??

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

That is a true fact, yes indeed. :)

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Given your previous experience, do you want to note "metafandom please do not link" at the top?"

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

After you said this (and it hadn't occurred to me), I thought about it in bed!! I thought, well, if they metafandom me, I'll respond so-and-so. I thought if there were nasty comments, I'd just quote Shakespeare back at them, or Aristotle. But I wasn't metafandomed!