A message from Limbo

Munan · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 3:13 am Post subject:

Hey, Blaster, good to hear from you again! And thanks, I can use it. Though nothing really depends on it, I am still very nervous about it.

And @Aurelyn: yes, yes they are.
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The Justified Ancient of Mu Mu

Aurelyn · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 6:02 am Post subject:

Of course you're nervous about it - it's been a huge part of your life for years. Best of luck with it! If it's any help, I was incredibly nervous in the lead up to mine, but actually thoroughly enjoyed it once it had arrived. Think about it - when else in your life are you going to be given free reign to talk about your work for hours without interruption?
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Munan · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 8:21 am Post subject:

That would be nice. Unfortunately, we've got an hour and must keep our answers short and to the point... Then a guy in a dress comes in, bangs his stick on the floor and shouts "Hora Finita" and you have to wrap it up...
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The Justified Ancient of Mu Mu

Aurelyn · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 7:46 pm Post subject:

There's a plus side to that too though - my viva voce was four hours. That's a long time to have to discuss anything.
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Munan · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:34 am Post subject:

In the Netherlands, the candidate who is preparing his or her defense, is supposed to attach eleven theses to his or her Ph.D. thesis. Five have to refer to the research the candidate has done, the rest are often about the university and society. Then there are one or two ludic theses, which are basically just fooling around. These theses form an official part of the defense and the opposition may choose to ask questions about them.

Anyway, here are my theses. See if you can spot the ludic ones...

1. The texts that are discussed in this study get their underlying dynamics from the fact that the drawing of strict borders between cultures at the same time calls forth a ‘clash of civilizations’ and puts the clashing cultures in an intimate relationship.

2. Especially after the 9/11 attacks, Dutch stories about meetings between Muslims and non-Muslims end with an impossible utopia or deus ex machine that supposedly makes the blending together or the transcending of the Muslim and the Western possible.

3. The Dutch author who wrote about meetings between Muslims and non-Muslims between 1990 and 2005, gave his fictions a social function: that of a utopia, a ‘border land’ where ‘Muslim’ and ‘Western’ could meet in a way that would not be possible in reality. This could be paired with a claim to an engaged authorship (Kader Abdolah) as well as an autonomistic concept of literature (Robert Anker, Abdelkader Benali and Hafid Bouazza).

4. To stage social tensions as caricatures, absurd, burlesque or grotesque, functions, in the works discussed in this study, as a way to exorcise these tensions.

5. Cultural studies in which the ‘circulation of social energy’ (Stephen Greenblatt) is researched, remain incomplete when only cultural artifacts and their genesis are analyzed and no attention is paid to the way in which they have been read, listened to, or watched by the members of the culture in question.

6. The ideal Ph.D. education includes teaching responsibilities, since ‘the best way to learn something is to teach it’ (Seneca).

7. In times like these, one of the explicitly formulated learning goals of cultural studies at universities should be that the student is able, at the end of his or her bachelor, to formulate the (social) necessity of the education he or she partook in.

8. Viktor Klemperer's Lingua terti imperii should be part of the propaedeusis of all Dutch humaniora education, to prevent the current academic silence vis à vis the increasing social and governmental institutionalizing of xenophobia to continue.

9. Bad education is profitable from a political and economic perspective, as it creates less critical citizens and consumers.

10. There is a causal relation between the spread of air conditioning and the spread of Muslim fundamentalism in South East Asia.

11. ‘Haters gonna hate’ (internet meme)
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The Justified Ancient of Mu Mu

Sal · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 6:41 am Post subject:

I would totally ask you to elaborate on the air conditioning problem.
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Aurelyn · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 3:32 pm Post subject:

Me too.
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Da Fro-mastah of da aLp Forums!

Munan · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:09 am Post subject:

Not the "haters gonna hate"? You disappoint me...

The air-conditioning: The traditional South East Asian mosque has no walls, only pillars, so that the cool evening breezes can blow through it. This created an 'open' mosque: inviting, open to outside influences, not dogmatic...

With the arrival of air-conditioning, the Arab style "closed mosque", otherwise undesirable in the tropical climate of South East Asia, became a possibility. This mosque, hermetically closed to outside influences, is the ideal meeting place for like-minded people, who can develop their fundamentalist ideas about purity and rigidity without any disturbance from outside their own, closed circle.

Hence my thesis.
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The Justified Ancient of Mu Mu

Simon_Says · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:53 am Post subject:

The closed environments probably also lead to a build-up of manstink after a while. Not conducive to calm and peaceful attitudes.
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Aurelyn · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:00 am Post subject:

Sal · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 11:09 am Post subject:

So it was a legitimate thing to ask after all.
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i have no time for anal love

Munan · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 12:41 pm Post subject:

Smiley · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 3:51 pm Post subject:

Long. huh-huh. Hard. huh-huh.
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"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-Gallileo Galilei

cfos · Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012 12:35 pm Post subject:

Smiley's reply.. huh huh huh.
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"If wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak."

Munan · Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 11:01 am Post subject:

The defense was hell, but you may now call me Doctor Mu.
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The Justified Ancient of Mu Mu

Simon_Says · Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 11:40 am Post subject:

Munan · Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 11:48 am Post subject:

I was more thinking along the lines of something like this. But, yeah.
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The Justified Ancient of Mu Mu

Smiley · Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 12:27 pm Post subject:

I was thinking of this one...

Doctor!
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"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-Gallileo Galilei

Ipsa · Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 6:55 pm Post subject:

Blaster · Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 9:15 pm Post subject:

Munan · Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 9:00 am Post subject:

Thanks, Ipsa & Blaster. And here's me holding my diploma. The people standing behind me are my paranymphs:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150770440140937&set=a.10150770413220937.452121.611365936&type=1&theater
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The Justified Ancient of Mu Mu

Alternate Spideygal · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:42 pm Post subject:

Oh my gosh, Munan! You look so handsome and debonair! Congrats on becoming a doctor!

Now go! Go and use your new powers for good! The world and universe needs saving!
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Married to Azrael.
Queen of Innuendo.

Munan · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 10:32 am Post subject:

Yes, I will place my newly gained scholarly powers at the service of mankind...

And thanks for the compliments, spidey! Made me blush.
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The Justified Ancient of Mu Mu

Alternate Spideygal · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 7:16 am Post subject:

Well they were well deserved compliments! I have a question though. Since you're a doctor...where's your sonic screwdriver?
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Married to Azrael.
Queen of Innuendo.

Aramor · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 5:34 am Post subject:

Hate to burst your bubble Spidey, but he's Doctor Mu... not Doctor Who. I know, I almost got confused as well.
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