I had chicken satay at a Thai restaurant the other day - I was quite happy to see that on the menu, it's perhaps my favourite chicken dish. But Thai chicken satay is not like the dish I've grown up on, which is the Indonesian version (well, one of the islands' version, but I'm too ignorant of Indonesia to know exactly which. Probably Java).
As luck would have it, I have a brilliant "Indisch" (Dutch-Indonesian fusion cuisine) cookery book, plus our family recipe for saté sauce. So I'll post it here for other people to make use of.
In the interest of vegetarianism (I'm currently contemplating actually making the move from a little meat to non-meat diet), I must post here that this dish also works well with tofu and chicken substitutes.
It can also be made with other meats, such as pork (babi), goat (kambing), shrimp (udang), and, for those so inclined (perhaps fewer Brits than Continental Europeans, who are far less difficult about horse meat), horse (kuda). Those are slightly different recipes though, and I restrict this recipe to chicken (ayam) / tofu / substitute only.
The Indische chicken sateh dish consists of two elements; the chicken and the sauce.
Chicken:
All you need to do for this is to cut chicken breast into cubes and stick it in a marinade to soak overnight.
Here's the marinade for 500 grams of chicken.
3 tablespoons of ketjap manis / dark soy sauce (if you can get it, ketjap manis. If not, dark soy sauce is a good enough substitute. The differences, though they are different, are fairly minor).
3 tablespoons of lemon juice.
2 tablespoons of peanut oil / vegetable oil (again, peanut oil is preferable, but vegetable oil works well enough).
1 teaspoon of pepper
salt to taste (remember soy sauce is already fairly salty)
So soak the chicken overnight in the fridge, then either shallow-fry the cubes or stick them on a skewer (wet the skewers if you're using wooden ones!), then on a grill.
Sauce:
Okay, so this is the family recipe for the simple version. The difficult version involves crushing peanuts to a powder and all that sort of nonsense. So this works well enough.
Get a small jar (300 grams) of smooth peanut butter. Not chunky. Smooth. It needs to be relatively oily too, so if you've got a 'dry' peanut butter, you need to add some peanut / vegetable oil to the recipe. You'll want to use half this jar.
Chop chillies, or use chilli paste - preferably sambal ulek/oelek, but that's so hard to get. Chillies and chilli paste work well too. Mix this with a pinch of ground ginger and a pinch of ground coriander.
Fry a diced and cubed onion with two chopped cloves of garlic (or more, if you like garlic). Add the spice mix. Then add the peanut butter and add milk and water, until everything has dissolved and the sauce has a sauce-like consistency. Add a tablespoon of sugar, a tablespoon of ketjap manis / dark soy sauce, two tablespoons of lemon juice, a pinch of salt, and a 1 cm^3 cube of creamed coconut. Tweak the amounts of milk, peanut butter, chillies and spices until it is just the way you like it.
Serve over the chicken cubes, or with chips, or over nasi goreng or other rice dishes, or whatever you like because you'll want to stick this peanut sauce on just about everything.
And that's it. Bon appétit.
Wednesday 30 October 2013
Sunday 13 October 2013
On the Benefits of an Interdisciplinary Education
Whenever UC Roosevelt explained the concept of 'liberal arts and sciences' to (prospective) students and their parents, some people often drew on the medieval and Renaissance concepts of the 'trivium' - grammar, logic and rhetoric - and the 'quadrivium' - arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy - which together are supposed to make up a full education.
Naturally, today's demands have changed education - especially music and astronomy are often left out of general education, although some schools may offer music as an elective art class and some schools may touch briefly on astronomy in science classes. Nevertheless, the point remains that a full education should entail the mastery of several subjects rather than just one.
This concept is not wholly foreign to Universities - just consider the recent founding of a number of liberal arts colleges in the Netherlands (UC Utrecht - 1998, UC Maastrict - 2002, Roosevelt Academy/UC Roosevelt - 2004, Amsterdam UC - 2008, Leiden UC The Hague - 2010, Erasmus UC - 2013).
For a very long time, people were considered to have been educated up to a sufficient level if they could read, write and pay their bills.
People were considered well-educated if they had a profound theoretical knowledge of a certain topic. But in today's world, where all information known to humankind is a screen-swipe at a rainy bus stop away, even if this is generally used to look at videos of Star Wars-sourced lyrics set against a capella renditions of John Williams soundtracks (it never gets old), this just isn't enough. People need to go back to the idea that a good education contains a bit of everything - the current day-reading&writing&maths.
UCR puts it that '[t]he Liberal Arts and Sciences educational concept is based upon the idea that today’s most complex problems can no longer be solved with a mono-disciplinary approach.' (http://www.ucr.nl/about-ucr/Pages/Liberal-Arts-and-Sciences.aspx), EUC says that '[t]o be successful in today’s evolving world, one must be literate in a host of arenas.' (http://www.eur.nl/euc/liberal_arts_sciences/introduction_las/), while AUC states it best when it writes that '[t]oday's society is in a constant state of flux, and our future leaders need to be flexible, creative thinkers, able to cope with the complexity of the issues facing the world. A liberal arts and sciences education is an excellent foundation in this context. In addition to factual knowledge, a liberal arts and sciences education prepares you to become a multilingual, informed and engaged global citizen, with well-developed intercultural competences, able to read intelligently, think critically and write effectively on the processes shaping our world.' (http://www.auc.nl/about-auc/about-liberal-arts--sciences/liberal-arts-sciences.html).
I do, however, recognise that changing education for the best takes a very long time (changing it for the worse, however, is much easier - but building always is more effort than destroying); it's already been 15 years since UCU was founded and only now the UC-movement has gained enough momentum to be recognised by people outside HE. So to help this process, let me list some advantages we interdisciplinarians have over those monodisciplinarians.
1. If we are in Arts, we can still do maths / if we are in Science, we can still deconstruct pop culture.
There are, of course, many other things we are also capable of, depending on the modules we took, but the fact that we will have had to pass modules in fields only tenuously related to our major (if that) means that we have a good theoretical knowledge of our major (that's what it's our major for) but also that we haven't been allowed to give up on basic capabilities such as doing maths and analysing poetry. I'm not saying a Literature major should be able to do calculus at the level of an astrophysicist, or the astrophysicist to understand all the subtleties of 'he was withered, wrinkled and loathsome of visage' (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 20), but I am nevertheless saying that interdisciplinarians can do more than just their major. We are inherently mixed methods rather than either quant or qual - we grasp SPSS as much as we grasp doing an ethnography.
2. We learn / study more flexibly.
This is related to the point above and naturally differs per person, but the fact that we have been forced to study different things means that we will have had to develop ways to deal with different topics, meaning that we are likely to be familiar with a whole range of study methods. This, in turn, will quite likely have prepared us to deal with having to learn new things later in life. We may have majored in one field, but our study skills make it easy for us to pick up knowledge in other fields too.
3. We can keep up an intelligent conversation.
This is not to say that monodisciplinarians can't - of course they can - but we are perhaps more comfortable than they are in doing so. We in Arts can still discuss time travel with a Science-friend, who is equally capable of keeping up a conversation on misogynist ideology in mainstream media (without saying profoundly stupid things).
4. We look at things in different ways.
A philosopher with modules in economics, a mathematician with modules in sociology - it works. Instead of continuing on the well-worn paths, we are able to apply concepts from other fields and translate our own ideas into other fields, thus finding ways of thinking outside the box, of approaching matters from different angles. This may not necessarily make us more creative, but it does make us less derivative.
Crossing fields is incredibly daunting, but being able to do so will keep not just Academia fresh and flexible, but industry too.
5. We don't have to give up interests.
While the first four make us good employees/entrepreneurs, this one is perhaps more to our own benefit. Not having to give up your other interests can change your life. I shall take myself as case in point: when I was 17, I really wanted to study Law. I was going to study Law, too, at Tilburg University. Had I gone on to study law, I would now be starting my internship at a law firm, probably having specialised in Family Law and intending to be a divorce lawyer, although I find Criminal Law much more interesting - Family Law is the safer option. But instead I got to combine Law with Economics and a bit of Politics, as well as Media Studies, Rhetoric and Stylistics, and I got to attend a book club and a literature and linguistics discussion group - so now I'm doing a PhD in English looking at UK news media (re)presentation of corporate fraud instead of learning how to tell people what's in it for them if they decide to get divorced. I dare say I am much happier than I would have been in the alternative scenario, if only because I get to do everything I find interesting, instead of just some little bit of it.
So, to summarise; we interdisciplinarians are flexible, hard-working, fast-learning, creative, intelligent and, importantly, happy people. There may be a fallacy here - did our interdisciplinary education make us so, or did we so start out so and chose an interdisciplinary education because of it? It is probably a bit of both, but fact remains that an interdisciplinary education is something to be supportive of.
Of course, interdisciplinarity does have its downsides. It is incredibly hard work - UCR used to advise that the average week in the semester entailed 56 hours of course-related work. I sometimes joke that my love for my alma mater is the result of Stockholm Syndrome. In order for it to be effective, class sizes should be limited - this could go both ways, as it would improve employment for academics but may be quite expensive if ill-organised. And it is difficult to explain what exactly you're doing - which is fine if you're just talking to your gran at a birthday, but is perhaps a little more difficult when you're looking for a job and have to say "yeah, uhm, look, I did major in Science but since I took modules on Physics and Engineering and IT and Mathematics it's basically equivalent to having studied Computer Science", or even worse, when you're a politician trying to make a point that Higher Education funding should not be further cut (which would get you my vote) and have to say "yes, look, I know it is not incredibly clear what our students are being trained for but I can assure you that they will be incredibly capable at whatever they end up doing" - saying you're training n lawyers, p surgeons and q historians (or, even more political, that you're training x STEM-field students, who are obviously a worthwhile investment because of the clear-cut monetary value of STEM-research - I have briefly covered this before, I promise to expand on it some other time) is much more likely to earn you the approval of other politicians. Perhaps monodisciplinarians with only one interest are happier being monodisciplinary.
And sometimes being interdisciplinary makes us a bit arrogant because it makes us think we know it all.
But it's worth it. Because ask yourself - would you rather have a GP who is really good at her job, or a GP who is really good at her job who also understands what she is doing when she votes during elections? A computer engineer who is really good at fixing your computer but also understands when the media are trying to manipulate him? An investment banker who is brilliant at handling your portfolio or one who is brilliant at handling your portfolio and also understands ethics?
Naturally, today's demands have changed education - especially music and astronomy are often left out of general education, although some schools may offer music as an elective art class and some schools may touch briefly on astronomy in science classes. Nevertheless, the point remains that a full education should entail the mastery of several subjects rather than just one.
This concept is not wholly foreign to Universities - just consider the recent founding of a number of liberal arts colleges in the Netherlands (UC Utrecht - 1998, UC Maastrict - 2002, Roosevelt Academy/UC Roosevelt - 2004, Amsterdam UC - 2008, Leiden UC The Hague - 2010, Erasmus UC - 2013).
For a very long time, people were considered to have been educated up to a sufficient level if they could read, write and pay their bills.
People were considered well-educated if they had a profound theoretical knowledge of a certain topic. But in today's world, where all information known to humankind is a screen-swipe at a rainy bus stop away, even if this is generally used to look at videos of Star Wars-sourced lyrics set against a capella renditions of John Williams soundtracks (it never gets old), this just isn't enough. People need to go back to the idea that a good education contains a bit of everything - the current day-reading&writing&maths.
UCR puts it that '[t]he Liberal Arts and Sciences educational concept is based upon the idea that today’s most complex problems can no longer be solved with a mono-disciplinary approach.' (http://www.ucr.nl/about-ucr/Pages/Liberal-Arts-and-Sciences.aspx), EUC says that '[t]o be successful in today’s evolving world, one must be literate in a host of arenas.' (http://www.eur.nl/euc/liberal_arts_sciences/introduction_las/), while AUC states it best when it writes that '[t]oday's society is in a constant state of flux, and our future leaders need to be flexible, creative thinkers, able to cope with the complexity of the issues facing the world. A liberal arts and sciences education is an excellent foundation in this context. In addition to factual knowledge, a liberal arts and sciences education prepares you to become a multilingual, informed and engaged global citizen, with well-developed intercultural competences, able to read intelligently, think critically and write effectively on the processes shaping our world.' (http://www.auc.nl/about-auc/about-liberal-arts--sciences/liberal-arts-sciences.html).
I do, however, recognise that changing education for the best takes a very long time (changing it for the worse, however, is much easier - but building always is more effort than destroying); it's already been 15 years since UCU was founded and only now the UC-movement has gained enough momentum to be recognised by people outside HE. So to help this process, let me list some advantages we interdisciplinarians have over those monodisciplinarians.
1. If we are in Arts, we can still do maths / if we are in Science, we can still deconstruct pop culture.
There are, of course, many other things we are also capable of, depending on the modules we took, but the fact that we will have had to pass modules in fields only tenuously related to our major (if that) means that we have a good theoretical knowledge of our major (that's what it's our major for) but also that we haven't been allowed to give up on basic capabilities such as doing maths and analysing poetry. I'm not saying a Literature major should be able to do calculus at the level of an astrophysicist, or the astrophysicist to understand all the subtleties of 'he was withered, wrinkled and loathsome of visage' (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 20), but I am nevertheless saying that interdisciplinarians can do more than just their major. We are inherently mixed methods rather than either quant or qual - we grasp SPSS as much as we grasp doing an ethnography.
2. We learn / study more flexibly.
This is related to the point above and naturally differs per person, but the fact that we have been forced to study different things means that we will have had to develop ways to deal with different topics, meaning that we are likely to be familiar with a whole range of study methods. This, in turn, will quite likely have prepared us to deal with having to learn new things later in life. We may have majored in one field, but our study skills make it easy for us to pick up knowledge in other fields too.
3. We can keep up an intelligent conversation.
This is not to say that monodisciplinarians can't - of course they can - but we are perhaps more comfortable than they are in doing so. We in Arts can still discuss time travel with a Science-friend, who is equally capable of keeping up a conversation on misogynist ideology in mainstream media (without saying profoundly stupid things).
4. We look at things in different ways.
A philosopher with modules in economics, a mathematician with modules in sociology - it works. Instead of continuing on the well-worn paths, we are able to apply concepts from other fields and translate our own ideas into other fields, thus finding ways of thinking outside the box, of approaching matters from different angles. This may not necessarily make us more creative, but it does make us less derivative.
Crossing fields is incredibly daunting, but being able to do so will keep not just Academia fresh and flexible, but industry too.
5. We don't have to give up interests.
While the first four make us good employees/entrepreneurs, this one is perhaps more to our own benefit. Not having to give up your other interests can change your life. I shall take myself as case in point: when I was 17, I really wanted to study Law. I was going to study Law, too, at Tilburg University. Had I gone on to study law, I would now be starting my internship at a law firm, probably having specialised in Family Law and intending to be a divorce lawyer, although I find Criminal Law much more interesting - Family Law is the safer option. But instead I got to combine Law with Economics and a bit of Politics, as well as Media Studies, Rhetoric and Stylistics, and I got to attend a book club and a literature and linguistics discussion group - so now I'm doing a PhD in English looking at UK news media (re)presentation of corporate fraud instead of learning how to tell people what's in it for them if they decide to get divorced. I dare say I am much happier than I would have been in the alternative scenario, if only because I get to do everything I find interesting, instead of just some little bit of it.
So, to summarise; we interdisciplinarians are flexible, hard-working, fast-learning, creative, intelligent and, importantly, happy people. There may be a fallacy here - did our interdisciplinary education make us so, or did we so start out so and chose an interdisciplinary education because of it? It is probably a bit of both, but fact remains that an interdisciplinary education is something to be supportive of.
Of course, interdisciplinarity does have its downsides. It is incredibly hard work - UCR used to advise that the average week in the semester entailed 56 hours of course-related work. I sometimes joke that my love for my alma mater is the result of Stockholm Syndrome. In order for it to be effective, class sizes should be limited - this could go both ways, as it would improve employment for academics but may be quite expensive if ill-organised. And it is difficult to explain what exactly you're doing - which is fine if you're just talking to your gran at a birthday, but is perhaps a little more difficult when you're looking for a job and have to say "yeah, uhm, look, I did major in Science but since I took modules on Physics and Engineering and IT and Mathematics it's basically equivalent to having studied Computer Science", or even worse, when you're a politician trying to make a point that Higher Education funding should not be further cut (which would get you my vote) and have to say "yes, look, I know it is not incredibly clear what our students are being trained for but I can assure you that they will be incredibly capable at whatever they end up doing" - saying you're training n lawyers, p surgeons and q historians (or, even more political, that you're training x STEM-field students, who are obviously a worthwhile investment because of the clear-cut monetary value of STEM-research - I have briefly covered this before, I promise to expand on it some other time) is much more likely to earn you the approval of other politicians. Perhaps monodisciplinarians with only one interest are happier being monodisciplinary.
And sometimes being interdisciplinary makes us a bit arrogant because it makes us think we know it all.
But it's worth it. Because ask yourself - would you rather have a GP who is really good at her job, or a GP who is really good at her job who also understands what she is doing when she votes during elections? A computer engineer who is really good at fixing your computer but also understands when the media are trying to manipulate him? An investment banker who is brilliant at handling your portfolio or one who is brilliant at handling your portfolio and also understands ethics?
Wednesday 2 October 2013
Living in Leeds and Starting the Research
When I came home from Uni yesterday, I was feeling particularly giddy; things are going quite well, and I am absolutely enjoying it.
You see, this week is the week that I officially started, and it's my fourth week of living in Leeds, so I'm more or less settling into a routine - and it's a routine that feels just right.
I really, really like Leeds. Leeds is technically a city and so I shouldn't like it - I don't like cities - but it doesn't feel big to me at all. It feels right. I can take a train from Headingley station (which, incidentally, I noticed was used in the pilot episode of DCI Banks, which I watched on ITV Player yesterday evening) and be in the city centre in 10 minutes. And there I find all the shops I could want or need - vintage and retro shops, fabric shops, shoe shops, bookshops, everything. I love the architecture - very redbrick Industrial Revolution urbanisation thing, there. I can cycle to the centre too and be there in 30 minutes.
Cycling to the Uni takes 12 minutes (15 when it's raining, as it is today), on a reasonably flat road (only one significant incline and even that one is not very steep) with fairly wide bicycle lanes. The Uni itself - or, well, the bits where I have to go, really - is wonderful. The School of English, on Cavendish Road - I'm typing this from its second floor computer cluster - has beautiful period features. There's a coffee shop nearby that does decent black coffee. It's only a bit further to the Parkinson Building (the one with the white tower that you see when you type 'University of Leeds' in Google Images), where the Brotherton Library is which has so.many.books and a wonderfully art deco interior. There's a bicycle repair shop on campus (yes, really) and there's lectures in a fascinatingly ugly but complex building (the Roger Stevens) which has M.C. Escher-esque staircases.
And I like Headingley. I like the shops that are only half a mile from my house and I like my house and my housemates (except when they wake me up at 5am). I like how the bus from Headingley to the Uni only costs a pound.
So now that I have drawn the background - the landscape, if you will - I shall tell you what a first week of a PhD at the School of English of the University of Leeds is like.
I met my fellow PhD students last Thursday during the Induction. The Induction more or less precisely serves this purpose; meet your - coursemates? colleagues? - and the Department/School. Naturally, there was a bunch of practical information too - Leeds PhDs are provisional for their first year and have to be 'upgraded' (well, technically it's 'transferred', but 'upgraded' sounds so wonderfully scifi) to PhD, to MPhil if the work is not up to PhD standard, or be asked to try again in three months or simply withdraw. So, technically, we are all Provisional PhD candidates until we are upgraded.
This morning ended with some drinks, and then an informal campus tour which was cut short by everyone deciding to have pints at the SU.
On Monday, the real work started. I audited a seminar and two lectures - yes, that is also possible at Leeds, if you can work it out schedule-wise and with your supervisor and the module coordinator - and attended another School reception. The seminar was my supervisor's undergraduate Stylistics seminar, which I basically audit because though I already took Stylistics in my undergraduate at UCR, new angles are always useful. I will not attend all, though. One of the lectures was for the Power of Language module, which is fascinatingly fascinating. I suppose I will draw most of my inspiration from this module.
Tuesday was a day for the Uni's 'Starting your Research Degree'-workshop, which, like most one-day workshops I have attended so far, involved post-its. I did, however, get some useful information out of it - mainly practical, though it did inspire me to go home and do a mindmap for my research. The mindmap ended up quite elaborate. I also audited a Forensic Linguistics seminar, which again I found fascinating.
Today, then, is finally a day for starting the work. And it's difficult. I don't know where to start. I'm supposed to have a formal meeting with my supervisor next week, but I want to have an idea of what I'm doing before I go there. I decided, eventually, to go philosophical; drag my more philosophically-inclined books to Uni, and work from there. My main aim is to find a politico-philosophical justification of my research interest, as my research is highly dependent on political context and I feel I need a solid grounding there.
As I often do, I reached for Lon Fuller's assertion that communication is the basic necessity for human survival and worked from there. I am currently working on justifying my position that establishing morality and (de)criminalising types of behaviour is dependent not just on legislation but also on public discourse (such as the media), which explains why it is important to understand the mechanisms of public discourse - and looking at media representation of corporate fraud as linked to the global economic crisis is one way of doing so. Of course, this position is far from controversial - of course people's opinions are changed based on what they hear and read and with and to whom they talk. But precisely because this 'of course' feels so much like common sense, I need to find out how and why this is so.
This may not end up in the final thesis. Heck, it is week 1, it will most likely not end up in my thesis. Will I end up including Cesare Beccaria's idea that judges get to judge because of a direct or indirect agreement of those subject to the law? Probably not. But it's good to look into it regardless.
I know I'm not studying anything that will tangibly help humanity. I am not curing HIV or Cancer, I am not building jetpacks or lightsabers or hoverboards, I am not figuring out how to travel to whatever planet is most like Gallifrey and I am not developing a truth serum. I am an idealist, and as such I want to understand the language of justice, and justice through language.
You see, this week is the week that I officially started, and it's my fourth week of living in Leeds, so I'm more or less settling into a routine - and it's a routine that feels just right.
I really, really like Leeds. Leeds is technically a city and so I shouldn't like it - I don't like cities - but it doesn't feel big to me at all. It feels right. I can take a train from Headingley station (which, incidentally, I noticed was used in the pilot episode of DCI Banks, which I watched on ITV Player yesterday evening) and be in the city centre in 10 minutes. And there I find all the shops I could want or need - vintage and retro shops, fabric shops, shoe shops, bookshops, everything. I love the architecture - very redbrick Industrial Revolution urbanisation thing, there. I can cycle to the centre too and be there in 30 minutes.
Cycling to the Uni takes 12 minutes (15 when it's raining, as it is today), on a reasonably flat road (only one significant incline and even that one is not very steep) with fairly wide bicycle lanes. The Uni itself - or, well, the bits where I have to go, really - is wonderful. The School of English, on Cavendish Road - I'm typing this from its second floor computer cluster - has beautiful period features. There's a coffee shop nearby that does decent black coffee. It's only a bit further to the Parkinson Building (the one with the white tower that you see when you type 'University of Leeds' in Google Images), where the Brotherton Library is which has so.many.books and a wonderfully art deco interior. There's a bicycle repair shop on campus (yes, really) and there's lectures in a fascinatingly ugly but complex building (the Roger Stevens) which has M.C. Escher-esque staircases.
And I like Headingley. I like the shops that are only half a mile from my house and I like my house and my housemates (except when they wake me up at 5am). I like how the bus from Headingley to the Uni only costs a pound.
So now that I have drawn the background - the landscape, if you will - I shall tell you what a first week of a PhD at the School of English of the University of Leeds is like.
I met my fellow PhD students last Thursday during the Induction. The Induction more or less precisely serves this purpose; meet your - coursemates? colleagues? - and the Department/School. Naturally, there was a bunch of practical information too - Leeds PhDs are provisional for their first year and have to be 'upgraded' (well, technically it's 'transferred', but 'upgraded' sounds so wonderfully scifi) to PhD, to MPhil if the work is not up to PhD standard, or be asked to try again in three months or simply withdraw. So, technically, we are all Provisional PhD candidates until we are upgraded.
This morning ended with some drinks, and then an informal campus tour which was cut short by everyone deciding to have pints at the SU.
On Monday, the real work started. I audited a seminar and two lectures - yes, that is also possible at Leeds, if you can work it out schedule-wise and with your supervisor and the module coordinator - and attended another School reception. The seminar was my supervisor's undergraduate Stylistics seminar, which I basically audit because though I already took Stylistics in my undergraduate at UCR, new angles are always useful. I will not attend all, though. One of the lectures was for the Power of Language module, which is fascinatingly fascinating. I suppose I will draw most of my inspiration from this module.
Tuesday was a day for the Uni's 'Starting your Research Degree'-workshop, which, like most one-day workshops I have attended so far, involved post-its. I did, however, get some useful information out of it - mainly practical, though it did inspire me to go home and do a mindmap for my research. The mindmap ended up quite elaborate. I also audited a Forensic Linguistics seminar, which again I found fascinating.
Today, then, is finally a day for starting the work. And it's difficult. I don't know where to start. I'm supposed to have a formal meeting with my supervisor next week, but I want to have an idea of what I'm doing before I go there. I decided, eventually, to go philosophical; drag my more philosophically-inclined books to Uni, and work from there. My main aim is to find a politico-philosophical justification of my research interest, as my research is highly dependent on political context and I feel I need a solid grounding there.
As I often do, I reached for Lon Fuller's assertion that communication is the basic necessity for human survival and worked from there. I am currently working on justifying my position that establishing morality and (de)criminalising types of behaviour is dependent not just on legislation but also on public discourse (such as the media), which explains why it is important to understand the mechanisms of public discourse - and looking at media representation of corporate fraud as linked to the global economic crisis is one way of doing so. Of course, this position is far from controversial - of course people's opinions are changed based on what they hear and read and with and to whom they talk. But precisely because this 'of course' feels so much like common sense, I need to find out how and why this is so.
This may not end up in the final thesis. Heck, it is week 1, it will most likely not end up in my thesis. Will I end up including Cesare Beccaria's idea that judges get to judge because of a direct or indirect agreement of those subject to the law? Probably not. But it's good to look into it regardless.
I know I'm not studying anything that will tangibly help humanity. I am not curing HIV or Cancer, I am not building jetpacks or lightsabers or hoverboards, I am not figuring out how to travel to whatever planet is most like Gallifrey and I am not developing a truth serum. I am an idealist, and as such I want to understand the language of justice, and justice through language.
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