Update: In Ultimate Po-Mo Move, Unhinged Dartmouth Prof Drops Lawsuit, Pick Lawsuit Up Again, Leaves Everyone Unsure of Everything
Breaking news: it looks as though unhinged post-modernist and writing professor Priya Venkatesan will or will not be pursuing legal action against Dartmouth College. Trying to stay in the news despite her rapidly fading 15 minutes, Venkatesan contacted Dartblog and The D yesterday to say that she was dropping the suit. Never mind, though. Within 24 hours she re-contacted them to say that she will indeed be pursuing legal action. What seems most likely, however, is that Venkatesan, despite her claims to the contrary, has not seen a lawyer.
The D has one pithy student's take on the whole matter:
If Venkatesan followed through with her lawsuit the same way she followed through with grading our papers, no one would have had anything to worry about,"
Meanwhile, the Dartmouth Administration seems more bemused than angry, exasperated that Dartmouth's spam-blockers can't shoo Venkatesan away. Here Gail M. Zimmerman, the Dean of First-Year students, pretends to care about Venkatesan's legal action:
Robert Donin, Dartmouth's General Counsel, was present at yesterday's meeting. He advises that we do not believe there is any merit to a potential lawsuit and he does not feel it necessary for students to retain their own legal counsel at this time...
Questions arose as to our ability to block Prof. Venkatesan's emails. Whether that ability exists or not, it would not likely stop her emails from reaching your inbox given the dearth and ready availability of other free email systems such as hotmail, gmail, and yahoo. If these emails are distressing, please don't hesitate to forward them to me unopened. I would request you to forward any emails to me regardless of whether you read them or not so that I can be apprised of and assess how best to respond and support you.
After the jump: we analyze Venkatesan's academic work.
The Amazon.com summary of Venkatesan's "book," no doubt written by the loony-toon herself:
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.
Insisting on some sort of connection between DNA and literary theory - because, as we know, literary theory saves lives, just like DNA - is tenuous at best. My dream is to someday become a "narratologist" (because narrator is like so, yesterday!) who produces "linkages" (because links are like so, yesterday) so that I can become a better blogger and understand, truly, the semiotics of what I write and the social forces - like Venkatesan's idiocy - that drive me to do what I do.
My bet is that Venkatesan has read a bit too much Foucault and wants to retread "Madness and Civilization" from a first-person perspective. Imagine the postmodern possibilities in a lawsuit about the rejection of postmodernism that may or may not actually be happening! It would revolutionize the field! Really, that would be the only excuse. Now it's time for Northwestern to fire her. Michel is turning over in his grave.
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April 30th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
She thinks she’s a revolutionary thinker, eh? The post-modernism hemorrhaging from Aliza Schvartz’s art instillation has definitely been mainlined by Prof Venkatesan. All of her senseless psycho-babble about the virtues of post-modernism likely made the students doubt their ontological arguments for their own existence in her class. Clearly the Po-Mo creed of “everything is possible and almost nothing is certain” seems to satisfy my interpretation here…but it does little else.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
it’s impossible to forward an email without opening it
April 30th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
What the hell is with these dartmouth types and linguistic study of disease? That book description reads almost exactly like this Dartmouth undergrad research:
*
*
“”In their paper, Abel and Glinert explain that the use of language and narrative and its significance in caring for patients has been studied. Their examination adds a linguistic layer to the scholarship, deepening the understanding of how the sounds in a medication’s name might have an underlying symbolism. The team looked at the sound symbolism of 60 frequently used cancer medications. Sound symbolism is the phenomenon where tiny bits of sounds have intrinsic connotations.”"
*
*
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2008/04/25.html
Connection?
April 30th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
It’s possible with blitz.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Be careful dude, she might sue you for online harassment.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
For one thing, she almost certainly did not write her own book blurb. She published in a prestigious series, not a basement publisher. And while I don’t really want to stick up for her given her recent actions, it is outrageous to critique a book based solely on a willful misreading of the publisher’s blurb. There is certainly nothing in the description, for instance, implying that she thinks literary theory can save lives. It seems like you’re simply arguing that it’s stupid to look for any ties between literature and science – and if that’s the case, a lot more people than this loony tune would disagree.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Oh, and “narratologist” and “narrator” mean different things; the former isn’t simply a fashionable name for the latter.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Thanks, James. I was going to pipe in with those same suggestions. Rag on this prof all you want, but there’s no need to go after narratology (the study of how narratives are structures) or Foucault (whose writing is actually very clear and whose topic – power and how power functions through things like forms of writing). Going after an individual for his/her inappropriate actions and then incriminating, by association, that person’s field – especially when that field is “theory” is a play right out of Fox News’s book.
I always thought IvyGate was above Fox News!!!
April 30th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Dartlog just published two long interviews with her: http://dartlog.net/2008/04/tdr-interview-priya-venkatesan.php
One would think that a longer format would provide her the opportunity to appear coherent and reasonable, but on the contrary, her mind-boggling insanity and weirdness is emphasized.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
In defense of my co-editor, I don’t think he’s lambasting Venkatesan by associating her with Foucault, but rather criticizing her in comparison with Foucault, of whose work Venkatesan’s work, at least at first glance, appears to be a sort of vulgar parody. Hence stuff like, “Michel is turning over in his grave.”
April 30th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I think she needs psychiatric help. But then again, so do most of us.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
dartLOG is NOT dartBLOG. two different blogs. Dartlog = the Dartmouth Review, Dartblog = made by some randos
April 30th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Agreed with James and far above cayuga, don’t make some bullshit analysis of her book or her work in general based on a blurb. IvyGate can do better.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
holy crap, that dartlog interview frightens me to pieces.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
What is truly amazing is that people will come on this website to defend theoretical interpretations of science that have added nothing to the discipline, at the expense of its standing in the popular mind.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
We salute the 11s.
From forwarded emails:
”
Subject: Must read .. douche prof at Dartmouth gets totally creamed
Guys, girls, JBAs
Read first this:
http://tinyurl.com/6h3bbw
… then this:
http://dartlog.net/2008/04/tdr-interview-priya-venkatesan.php
and then tell me whether you would not have paid $100 to be in the class to skull-fuck that PoMo poseur? I would have made Bacon come out of her ears. I am really proud of our lil 11s.”
April 30th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
We salute the D ‘11 freshmen.
—————
From forwarded emails:
”
Subject: Must read .. douche prof at Dartmouth gets totally creamed
Guys, girls, JBAs
Read first this:
http://tinyurl.com/6h3bbw
… then this:
http://dartlog.net/2008/04/tdr-interview-priya-venkatesan.php
and then tell me whether you would not have paid $100 to be in the class to skull-fuck that pretentious PoMo poseur? I would have made Bacon come out of her ears. I am really proud of our lil 11s.”
April 30th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
thats not, strictly speaking, what dna does.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:39 am
How can there be both a dearth and ready availability of something?
May 1st, 2008 at 9:15 am
that dartlog interview is priceless.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:35 pm
It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, after all.
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:34 am
To compare literary structures to the DNA code is an exercise in ignorance and obfuscation. James and other litcrits such as Priya here certainly suffer from an inferiority complex w.r.t. science. I guess they failed that subject in school, the same way that Priya failed becoming a scientist.
And Foucault was the guy who embraced the death squad leader Ayatolla Khomeini as being authentic and fit for ruling a hapless 70 million people. Foucault was a mass murderer in the intellectual sphere.
Problem with pomo and its defenders is that when they are unable to understand a systems phenomena, unlike scientists who have their methods of investigation, they dismiss it as being complex. What they mean is that it is too complex for them. Not for a scientist versed in math and systems theory.
This Priya is the best thing that happened after the Sokal hoax. James and other pomos are cringing.
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:37 am
To compare literary structures to the DNA code is an exercise in ignorance and obfuscation. James and other litcrits such as Priya here certainly suffer from an inferiority complex w.r.t. science. I guess they failed that subject in school, the same way that Priya failed becoming a scientist.
And Foucault was the guy who embraced the death squad leader Ayatolla Khomeini as being authentic and fit for ruling a hapless 70 million people. Foucault was a mass murderer in the intellectual sphere.
Problem with pomo and its defenders is that when they are unable to understand a systems phenomena, unlike scientists who have their methods of investigation, they dismiss it as being complex. What they mean is that it is too complex for them. Not for a scientist versed in math and systems theory.
This Priya is the best thing that happened after the Sokal hoax. James and other pomos are cringing.
May 5th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Does anyone know how the heck she got hired by Northwestern? Because I’m trying to figure out if they’re a magnet for cranks, or if they’re actively seeking them out.
Bernardine Dohrn
Arthur Butz
A J-school dean who can’t attribute quotes properly
Jerry Springer speaking at the law school commencement
And now this??
What is wrong with these people???
May 7th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
“I’m not even going to give you the rumors that were circulating about Tom, that’s just gossip. I’m not going to get unprofessional. I’m just going to give you my personal assessment of Tom Cormen as my supervisor and as director of the Writing Program. I’m not going to go in to rumors.”
Wow, how professional of her. Maybe they bumped uglies? That’d be kind of interesting. And messy.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Northwestern is fine; your examples are a bunch of loose junk. Priya is a *research assistant* — the academic equivalent of part-time cashier at Wal-Mart. The J-school dean apologized for quoting someone anonymously; not a big deal in my book. And Springer? He was mayor of Cincinnati and is a Northwestern Law School *alum*. Dohrn… Meh. Lots of academics from the 60s have questionable pasts — especially those in the softer (i.e. bullshit) social sciences.
Now Butz… He is a freak. They’ve been trying to get him to move along forever, but he’s like Herpes: he just won’t go.
So don’t go tarring and feathering Northwestern. Any school in the Ivy League has its share of crazies.Same goes for Northwestern, Chicago, Hopkins, Duke, Stanford, Vandy, ….
June 12th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I’d have to agree with the above poster. There is ample scholarship by more reputable and less insane scholars about the relationships between literature and science. Namely William Paulson and N. Katherine Hayles, who have both done books and articles on information theory and deconstructionism.
That being said, I wouldn’t trust this women with the subject with a fifty foot pole. If her interview is any proof of her writing ability.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I’d have to agree with the above poster. There is ample scholarship by more reputable and less insane scholars about the relationships between literature and science. Namely William Paulson and N. Katherine Hayles, who have both done books and articles on information theory and deconstructionism.
That being said, I wouldn’t trust this women with the subject with a fifty foot pole. If her interview is any proof of her writing ability.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I’d have to agree with the above poster. There is ample scholarship by more reputable and less insane scholars about the relationships between literature and science. Namely William Paulson and N. Katherine Hayles, who have both done books and articles on information theory and deconstructionism.
That being said, I wouldn’t trust this women with the subject with a fifty foot pole. If her interview is any proof of her writing ability.
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