Piwin -> RE: Academic Articles About Flamenco (Jun. 30 2016 12:34:47)
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@Brendan. I do hope it was clear I was only picking on one small aspect, a detail really, of her thesis. And that detail is by no means an important factor in judging the quality of an MA thesis. My intent was not to go after anyone, just to bring up a larger issue of what constitutes a credential and how it is sometimes assumed that one thing is a credential when closer scrutiny suggests otherwise. But you're right that this is a "Google-searchable" discussion, and I hope none of this was construed as me going after the author of this thesis. And I'll add, just to be clear, that I have no academic expertise in her field and can't even claim to be a scholar, since those days are behind me now. So all of this should be taken as the point of view of an outsider. As for having a more structured discussion on a stronger text, I'd be happy to participate if you're willing to take on the questions and opinions of an outsider to the field. What do you suggest? @BarkellWH This is just an aside as I'm going far off topic but bringing up Sokal made me think of the group of activists called The Yes Men, which has been active since 2003. They go after what they see as the excesses of corporations, government organizations or international organizations. Their modus operandi is to set up a fake website with a similar address to that of the real organization they're targeting (say WTO.com instead of WTO.org or something of the like). They then impersonate representatives of said organization and, when invited to deliver a speech in another venue, they use reductio ab adsurdum to reveal ideological issues. It is particularly effective as quite often the people they are pulling the hoax on buy it. They are in fact quite good actors. In the first video I saw of them, they were impersonating WTO representatives before an audience of about a hundred people. They talked the talk extremely well and slowly, over the course of the speech, they raised the level of absurdity and by the end of it, I think they had suggested re-establishing slavery in third world countries or something similarly abhorrent... You would think people would have left in outrage, but the impersonated WTO reps received rather nourished applause and some participants had bought the whole thing and came up to them to enquire further about it. I don't necessarily agree with the conclusions they draw from these pranks, but they do reveal some profound issues. Their impersonation of a Dow rep. on the BBC declaring that Dow was taking full responsibility for the Bhopal disaster was also quite effective. Those who bought it were quickly reminded that it would be almost unthinkable to hear a large corporation say "we're going to do the right thing, even if it costs us". It was a vivid reminder that money can trump moral responsibility in the higher rungs of some large corporations. Their approach has the added benefit of being rather funny.
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