{"id":2836,"date":"2008-11-06T13:29:45","date_gmt":"2008-11-06T17:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batesviews.net\/?p=2836"},"modified":"2023-01-25T14:47:09","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T19:47:09","slug":"im-the-girl-talk-of-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2008\/11\/06\/im-the-girl-talk-of-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m the Girl Talk of Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

So I am the Girl Talk of the thesis world.\u00a0 I do mash-ups.\u00a0 That\u2019s my thing.\u00a0 I make my living off of taking other people\u2019s work and smushing it together into something on which I put my name (not without giving due credit of course).\u00a0 But really, I am taking the thought of a 13th century Japanese Zen philosopher and comparing it with a contemporary feminist thinker of technoscience.\u00a0 That\u2019s like combining \u201cThe Hallelujah Chorus\u201d with Missy Elliott.\u00a0 And, I can groove to it.\u00a0 Without getting hit in the head or knocked on the ground like the recent Girl Talk show here at Bates.<\/p>\n

But the most interesting thing about the comparison of my thesis to mash-up music is that the critiques of both ventures are the same.\u00a0 Concerning mash-up music, debates have been circulating concerning the question of whether a mash-up song should be considered new or not.\u00a0 Is a mash-up song authentic?\u00a0 Is it \u201creal\u201d music?\u00a0 Or is it simply two previously written songs placed together into something that is less novel than it is a rip-off.\u00a0 And what does it mean that computers are so fancy these days that any Joe-shmo can take two of his favorite songs and layer them together?\u00a0 Does that count as authentic?\u00a0 Or does one need to have a certain knowledge about music, about both the songs, about how sounds and beats and rhythms work together?<\/p>\n

I face some of those similar questions in my thesis writing process.\u00a0 Can what I produce be considered \u201coriginal\u201d or \u201cnew\u201d?\u00a0 What about authentic?\u00a0 Am I just taking from others?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, because Girl Talk just needs a record deal and I need not to be torn limb from limb by feminists, I have to make sure my methods in this process are unassailable.\u00a0 While thinking two songs are awesome and then having the artists approve their use works for Girl Talk I can\u2019t exactly put that same approach into my methods: I think Dogen and Donna Haraway are awesome and their works are published so I\u2019ll make sure to cite them properly.\u00a0 That won\u2019t fly.\u00a0 I need to contextualize these authors\u2019 thoughts in their specific historical times.\u00a0 Which means I\u2019ve read A LOT about 13th century Japan and A LOT about America post-WWII.\u00a0 And what have I learned so far?\u00a0 I have learned what makes what I\u2019m doing so difficult and GirlTalk has no idea.<\/p>\n

The problem with what I am attempting to do is that I am alive.\u00a0 Yes, I\u2019ve discussed this with my advisor, this is actually real.\u00a0 The problem is that I\u2019m alive.\u00a0 How do I fix that problem and still finish my thesis?\u00a0 However, this is a problem that all historians supposedly face- we\u2019re alive and the people we\u2019re talking about often aren\u2019t.\u00a0 So we can\u2019t ask the Coolios for permission to use track 13.\u00a0 I cant ask Dogen if he\u2019s okay with what I\u2019m doing because he\u2019s dead.\u00a0 And I can ask Donna Haraway- and maybe I will once I get a more solidified thesis idea but the fact of the matter is- I\u2019m alive and Haraway\u2019s alive and Dogen\u2019s not and we make an odd threesome.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m optimistic.\u00a0 I\u2019m learning a lot about both thinkers and the times in which they existed.\u00a0 I also learned that I hate Ronald Regan.\u00a0 So here I am: the mash-up philosopher who\u2019s making friends and influencing people.\u00a0 And hating on Ronald Regan.\u00a0 Only with thesis.<\/p>\n

Shhhh,
\nSteph<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Concerning mash-up music, debates have been circulating concerning the question of whether a mash-up song should be considered new or not. Is a mash-up song authentic? Is it \u201creal\u201d music? Or is it simply two previously written songs placed together into something that is less novel than it is a rip-off. And what does it mean that computers are so fancy these days that any Joe-shmo can take two of his favorite songs and layer them together? Does that count as authentic?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[11010,133,179],"tags":[3498,6135,6982,11648,10751],"class_list":["post-2836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-creativity","category-language-literature","tag-feminism","tag-music-tag","tag-philosophy","tag-religion-and-spirituality","tag-religious-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62523,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836\/revisions\/62523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}