Posted on 05/31/2008 10:56:36 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
Can you be an obscure, self-indulged, theory-laden, post-modern scholar and manage to be an effective university president?
University of Wisconsin at Madison is hoping “yes.” It has picked Biddy Martin, Cornell provost and women’s studies professor, as its new chancellor. Her best-known work is a little something called Femininity Played Straight, which features chapters entitled “Sexualities without Gender and Other Queer Utopias” and “Teaching Feminism.” The one review that Amazon.com has picked up on the book is truncated to a single sentence, though it pretty much sums up the obtuseness of Ms Martin’s field: “Martin's eccentric use of the body as drag... is wittily set against the queer privileging of transgender identification.”
She is also an editor of an anthology Do the Humanities Have to Be Useful? (pdf). In her essay, she positively raves about the state of progressive enlightenment she found as a college student:
Something in my language and speech at the end of a year in college seemed to have changed me and make me [sic] an infidel [to my family]. The anti-intellectualism with which I was inundated as a child, adolescent, and young adult was aimed at ensuring loyalty to the forms of racist bigotry and social conformity that have long helped to cement familial and community bonds in that part of Virginia.
Ladies and Gentlmen, Biddy Martin: A creature of the university, for the university, who thinks that universities are ‘useful’ in the sense that they can flush students of the bigotry found in most of American society. Just charming.
I’m planning on hitting the Finger Lakes in late July. My girlfriend insists on stopping in Ithaca for the same reason she insisted I take her through Camden: she finds dysfunctional societies worthy of observation.
“My girlfriend insists on stopping in Ithaca for the same reason she insisted I take her through Camden: she finds dysfunctional societies worthy of observation.”
Hey..you’re a lucky man. Where did you meet her. I gotta get me one.
It is difficult to believe this clown can even be considered a scholar, never mind become President of a major university. From the brief description on Amazon.com her principal work sounds like a failed, hopeless, turgid attempt to turn her own psychological problems into a work of profundity:
www.amazon.com
Product Description
In Femininity Played Straight, Biddy Martin traces the changing relations of lesbianism and feminist theory from the late 1970s to the present. These sparkling essays argue for accounts of sexuality, gender and subjectivity that make lesbianism intelligible and important, for lesbians and non-lesbians alike.
Moving between theoretical and autobiographical modes, Biddy Martin brings different kinds of writing to bear upon one another. At a theoretical level, her work takes issue with postmodern theory, defending instead the role of psychoanalytic criticism. She argues for the continued validity of critical modes that do not abandon the unconscious in seeking to understand the relation of subjectivity to language. In so doing, she addresses the work of writers, thinkers and activists as varied as Mary Daly, Michel Foucault, Adrienne Rich, Gayle Rubin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Sigmund Freud, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Audre Lorde, Judith Butler, and Joan Copjec.
Lesbianism here provides a critical lever for exploring wider issues of sexuality, gender, power, and individuality. Femininity Played Straight puts lesbians in their place—a place that is part of society, culture, and critical discourse.
About the Author
Biddy Martin is Associate Professor of German Studies and Women’s Studies at Cornell University.
She's great, but does not have a sister and can't be cloned.
She’s an abdo-lutely perfect choice for UWM!
To whom in Madison should we send our thanks?
The leftist drift of this society is directly attributable to idiot leftists in the humanities departments.
“Do the Humanities Have to Be Useful?”
Hoping for a sequel: Do They Have to be Supported by the Taxpayers?
OOOfff DA!
Women’s studies is the most useless curriculum on the planet, not to mention the easiest. A course of study strictly promoted for political indoctrination but without merit when it comes to preparing students for the job market.
You can always spot the head executives. They are the ones with dirty knees.
Q. Did you hear about the feminist who got pregnant?
A. She claimed the baby wasn’t hers.
"Those who can't, teach."
Uh, gee, do ya think she hates men?
Just remember one thing: the only job of a president of a university is to raise funds from donors.
The actual running of operations is done by the provost.
Yet another dyke who obviously had little choice in the matter.
Most definitely guilty in the first degree.
With no chance of parole, probation nor appeal.
Some consider humanistic study dangerous. It has the potential to make individuals of us and to separate us from inherited ideas and limiting expectations.
In that regard, I agree with her. However, there is a fine line between teaching students to think for themselves, a quality that is in fact dangerous (to the establishment), and indoctrinating students into the herd mentality.
The other point to address is that presently non-productive (i.e., not able to produce goods and services that satisfy present needs) sectors of our society (such as humanistic studies) still have basic needs that must be satisfied, usually by the productive sectors. Again, there is a fine line between taking (stealing) from the productive to redistribute to the presently non-productive and from the productive voluntarily contributing to the presently non-productive.
So, why would anyone who had the smarts to make money give a dime of it to this freak, or to any school stupid enough to make her its president?
Actually, in late July, Ithaca can be quite pleasant. The students are gone, many of the professors are on sabbatical and the real weirdos are out in Trumansburg at the Grass Roots Music Festival
I’m a grad student at UW. I wasn’t happy about this pick, I thought the VP of Research at Minnesota would have been a better. A Big Ten guy, and it would have been a sign that the administration was putting a priority on research seeing as we are one of the premier research institutions in the country. I’m also interested to see if she shares alum and ex-ceo of cisco John Morgridge’s view that UW should be the Stanford of the mid-west in terms of entrepreneurialism.
Why get a research specialist from the Big Ten when you can get a feminazi, affirmative action, hire from the Ivy League?
I was looking to stay in Geneva. Is there another town that is preferable?
Lol, when you put it like that, it does make a lot of sense. /sarc
I’m going to be watching her like a hawk. She’s not worthy enough to tie John Wiley’s shoes, but he smokes, so he obviously wasn’t worthy of the job.
bump
Finger Lakes?Cayuga Lake area?If your lookin for libs you’ll def find them there.Anyways,beautiful country.Great for hiking,fishing,etc.Lots of wildlife.The deer are easily twice the size of what we have here in Fl.Yrs ago i spent summer vacation working on relatives farm right outside Trumansburg,NY.Great people BUT hardcore libs.Must be the water:)
Yes the Ithacan Freepers are are aware of that. Biddy has been the Provost at Cornell.
I’m a UW grad and this type of decision making has led to my making a decision not to contribute any money to UW. I do support the sports teams.
The whole of the liberal arts portion of academia is just so out of touch with reality. Who knows what the Board of Trustees thinks, but based on this hire, not much.
Unfortunately, women's studies is not alone in its bias and emptiness. Almost every area in the humanities has been infected with anti-white, anti-men, anti-heterosexual, anti-conservative, and Marxism. Chicano studies, African American studies, English, labor economics, social work, history, and many others are bastions of Marxist political thought. In addition, most universities require one or more diversity courses even if you are not in the humanities. These courses are political indoctrination at best.
Honest. Go figure. I bet this new young sweetie will make a great chancellor.
My guess is, you're going to have to wait awhile on that one.
No wonder “she” wants a genderless society, it’s already committed to that it’s self.
“University of Wisconsin at Madison ... has picked Biddy Martin, Cornell provost and women’s studies professor, as its new chancellor.”
She’ll be joining the ranks of a long list of distinguished loonies going back in time more than thirty years.
**she finds dysfunctional societies worthy of observation.**
Then DO NOT bring her to Ithaca!! There is so much to observe under dysfunctional societies, she may never LEAVE.
Remember, Ithaca was founded by a bunch of Hippies that took a Wrong turn out of WOODSTOCK!
**To whom in Madison should we send our thanks?**
I’m willing to help Mr/Ms Martin ... PACK!!
Well your best consolation should be you can get your degree and get out of there before she has time to completely wreck the place.
I find it difficult to understand how a major university can be led by someone who so obviously is not fit to be tenured at a community college, but that’s the brave new world of the politicall correct university.
Provost Martin was appointed Cornell University's Provost effective July 1, 2000. She has served on several committees for the Institute of German Cultural Studies, Women's Studies and Lesbian, Bisexual, and Gay Studies. Her publications include Woman and Modernity: The (Life) Styles of Lou Andreas-Salome (1991) and Femininity Played Straight (1996).
As a Genevan, I'd say no! Seneca Lake is beautiful, wineries abound (if you're interested), and we even have a bit of dysfunction for your friend to observe if you go to the right places.
Skaneateles is very nice, although Geneva is also very pretty.
Unfortunately, women’s studies is not alone in its bias and emptiness. Almost every area in the humanities has been infected with anti-white, anti-men, anti-heterosexual, anti-conservative, and Marxism. Chicano studies, African American studies, English, labor economics, social work, history, and many others are bastions of Marxist political thought. In addition, most universities require one or more diversity courses even if you are not in the humanities. These courses are political indoctrination at best.””
The marketing of worthless programs at exhorbitant costs is a disservice to all students and many parents footing the bills. You are spot on.
An older post, but I wanted you to see it.
UWM, or UW Milwaukee is too small for her.
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