Two interesting academic articles I've discovered in my studies: Smith (2000) and Gordon (2000).3/23/2016
I am looking forward to being finished this Master's; all the joy that academia has given me over the years has faded into futility and frustration. However, over my Master's I've been drawn to a few academic papers despite my disillusionment. I'll share a couple of them here today.
I won't mind returning to either of these are papers even after I take a break from my life as an attempted academic. INTERESTING ACADEMIC PAPER #1: Does the 'New Economy' Measure up to the Great Inventions of the past? (Gordon 2000)
Today, after listening to the most recent episode of Freakonomics, I found my way to Robert J. Gordon's "Does the 'New Economy' Measure up to the Great Inventions of the past?" It's long and I haven't read it in detail, but it's nonetheless readable and full of little nuggets of insight and interesting data.
I appreciate how Gordon takes the time to question the Internet's self-importance. Just because something is more technological doesn't necessarily mean it's more influential. Here's one of my favorite passages:
I'm looking forward to replacing my smartphone, but I know that they've only had tweaks here and there since the iPhone, and really they're just computers you can carry around. Although the online economy has made some things more convenient, we still need shipping, drainage, and sanitation. The online economy is an extraneous one and I appreciate the way Gordon has questioned it.
INTERESTING ACADEMIC PAPER #2: The Specific Challenges of Globalization for Teaching and Vice Versa (Smith 2000)
David Geoffrey's Smith's "The Specific Challenges of GLobalization for Teaching and Vice Versa" describes the alienation teachers feel as they are pressured to fill out various mandates in the name of progress. I think Smith does a good job at pointing out how many of the advances we perceive in education are merely the colonization of education by corporate values.
Here's my favorite passage:
I'm still editing my paper, so I don't want to use up much more brainspace for this blog, but there's a little food for thought, a couple passages that perked my brain towards new ways of thinking.
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I'm over in Victoria, BC, for Spring Break. I'm hoping that the change of scenery will help me get my research project finished. I don't know if it will happen, but I'm hopeful. I just sat down in the library—the moment I typed my first letter, I yawned. This is going to be a hard slog.
Trying to write in such an explicit manner about a dull topic has not gone as well as I'd hoped. I thought by now I'd be in the swing of things, that the tone of the paper would slip out of me with elegance and style. But it hasn't. And I feel like I've paid a social price for this far worse than I ever anticipated.
When this Master's is done, I will no longer have a place to make academic friends. Between the abandonment of academia and the church, I will have lost the two main places where I've built relationships over the years. I will be starting fresh in so many ways. But I need to move from my yawning to the creation of seeming academic paragraphs and sentences. So bye for now. |
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