The Cambridge Chat Thread

Most of the day in Starbucks, and the night at the Eagle. Work must happen now.

Reply 7283

OP

The Postmodern Condition was written as a report on the influence of technology on the notion of knowledge in exact sciences, commissioned by the Québec government. Lyotard later admitted that he had a 'less than limited' knowledge of the science he was to write about, and to compensate for this knowledge, he 'made stories up' and referred to a number of books that he hadn't actually read. In retrospect, he called it 'a parody' and 'simply the worst of all my books'.[3] Despite this, and much to Lyotard's regret, it came to be seen as his most important piece of writing.

Reply 7284

fumblewomble

2

Craghyrax

I decided to screw the rest of them and just kept reading it. For 10hours :eek:

I wouldn't count that as a reading fail though. You found something good. And quality beats quantity. Nothing worng with telling your supervisor that you really got into one book and decided to concentrate on that. They might be suspicious if you did it every week and they thought you're not doing enough reading. But sometimes when it's genuine then it's fine. :yep:

Good luck.

Reply 7285

Craghyrax

Well, Baudrillard always has said that illusion and ideas are as real as the concrete. In other words, "anything goes".

Reply 7286

brimstone

7

Zoedotdot

EDIT: Found it but iPlayer is down :frown:

How annoying :mad:

I wanted to watch 'The Thick of It' but may have to go to bed instead. Not do work.

All the books/journals for this essay I'm going to write are really not helpful - they're either way too general about Wollstonecraft's thought or just go off on a tangent (one journal article mentioned her twice in twenty pages :rolleyes:

).

Reply 7287

Zoedotdot

18

brimstone

How annoying :mad:

I wanted to watch 'The Thick of It' but may have to go to bed instead. Not do work.

All the books/journals for this essay I'm going to write are really not helpful - they're either way too general about Wollstonecraft's thought or just go off on a tangent (one journal article mentioned her twice in twenty pages :rolleyes:

).

Last year for our Pushkin epic poem we found two direct references to it anywhere - one saying that it was part of a series of poems and had never achieved much critical acclaim and the other was a quote from Pushkin himself stating that he thought it was an awful poem. I have to say, I agreed with Pushkin :p:

Reply 7288

alex_hk90

19

Craghyrax

Not quite as good, but this is the best quote I've come across so far in Part IIA Economics:

A. Feldman - Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory

One would not expect it [Pareto consistency] to hold in societies which are ruled by external forces; in which, for example, everyone prefers lust and gambling, on the one hand, to chastity and frugality on the other; but where, according to a Holy Book, the social state of chastity and frugality is preferable to the social state of lust and gambling. Economists naturally would recommend lust and gambling.

Reply 7289

brimstone

How annoying :mad:

I wanted to watch 'The Thick of It' but may have to go to bed instead. Not do work.

I wont spoil it, but this thick of it has history's most inspired, literally awe inspiring face-off. Enjoy, when you can watch it :biggrin:

.

Reply 7290

BigFudamental

alex_hk90

Not quite as good, but this is the best quote I've come across so far in Part IIA Economics:

How are you enjoying econ by the way? I've always thought (and think) Cambridge offer the strongest undergraduate econ programme.

Reply 7291

alex_hk90

19

BigFudamental

How are you enjoying econ by the way? I've always thought (and think) Cambridge offer the strongest undergraduate econ programme.

I'm really enjoying it this year. :biggrin:

I like how technical the Micro and Macro have become (and hence how few essays I now have to write), while the Maths and Econometrics (especially) are surprisingly interesting. :smile:

Reply 7292

OP

Postmodern adventures in architecture:

The Cultural Turn - Jameson

The descent is dramatic enough, plummeting back down through the roof to splash down in the lake; what happens when you get there is something else which I can only try to characterise as milling confusion, something like the vengeance this space takes on those who still seek to walk through it. Given the absolute symmetry of the four towers, it is quite impossible to get your bearings in this lobby; recently, colour coding and directional signals have been added in a pitiful, rather desperate and revealing attempt to restore the co-ordinates of an older space. I will take as the most dramatic practical result of this spatial mutation the notorious dilemna of the shopkeepers on the various balconies: it has been obvious, since the very opening of the hotel in 1977, that nobody could ever find any of these stores, and even if you located the appropriate boutique, you would be most unlikely to be as fortunate a second time; as a consequence, the commercial tenants are in despair and all the merchandise is marked down to bargain prices. When you recall that Portman is a businessman as well as an architect, and a millionaire developer, an artist who is at once and the same time a capitalist in his own right, you cannot but feel taht here too something of a 'return of the repressed' is involved.
:rofl:

Reply 7293

Emphasis on "adventures", here, I see ...

Reply 7294

OP

fumblewomble

I wouldn't count that as a reading fail though. You found something good. And quality beats quantity. Nothing worng with telling your supervisor that you really got into one book and decided to concentrate on that. They might be suspicious if you did it every week and they thought you're not doing enough reading. But sometimes when it's genuine then it's fine. :yep:

Good luck.

Thanks; unfortunately for most of my papers we don't have supervisors who see us more than once. Especially in final year where you're taught by the experts, the (usually world class) person giving the set of lectures for that particular topic will give you a supervision on it. So each time you have only one chance of making an impression. Slightly disconcerting to somebody wanting the department to give her a postgrad offer :wink:

alex_hk90

Not quite as good, but this is the best quote I've come across so far in Part IIA Economics:

Lol!

Catsmeat

Well, Baudrillard always has said that illusion and ideas are as real as the concrete. In other words, "anything goes".

That is, indeed, the motto of postmodernism. Except it needs a footnote to say: 'except meta-narratives of any kind'

Reply 7295

Stratocaster

2

Well I've just had a really poor night out, and I'm actually going to do some work in order to end the night well. I think this will be my first post-midnight work session and I feel as if I'm actually a Cambridge student now. Wish me luck guys.

Reply 7296

Blaah Blaah

Stratocaster

Well I've just had a really poor night out, and I'm actually going to do some work in order to end the night well. I think this will be my first post-midnight work session and I feel as if I'm actually a Cambridge student now. Wish me luck guys.

Good luck. I'm still refusing to work that late, as soon as it gets after 11 I switch from work to a film.

Reply 7297

OP

Oh dear. Reading done. That was the easy bit.
Essay time :sigh:

Reply 7298

TheUnbeliever

16

I was in bed by half-midnight every night for the first half of term. I think I've started to work much more inefficiently, though, as I'm regularly up at about 3, now.

Reply 7299

OP