tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post8705293471640319405..comments2023-10-30T12:26:15.822+01:00Comments on Research as a Second Language: MiddlingThomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-6187957608034833552011-04-12T10:47:36.002+02:002011-04-12T10:47:36.002+02:00I don't recommend that researchers romanticize...I don't recommend that researchers romanticize their work in that way. It's fine for poets and novelists (and even for "serious" filmmakers, if they like that sort of thing). But it seems a bit silly in academia. See <a href="http://secondlanguage.blogspot.com/2011/02/trying-to-figure-world-out-trying-to.html" rel="nofollow">this post</a>.<br /><br />I think you're right that Allen's movies suggest that intellectual life is much more ordinary than many intellectuals like to think. He's got a great way of exposing existential anxieties as largely the subject of a kind of idle chatter among elites. Of course, some anxieties are quite real. Serious art does exist and does have a purpose. But it seems to me that the university offers a place to take things a bit less seriously from day to day.<br /><br />As Jonathan says, your end goal is still excellence, even a kind of profundity. (And, in the end, Woody does care about people in love. He is not just ridiculing them.) But the daily struggle need not be all that dramatic.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-71621392895172830322011-04-11T23:30:21.715+02:002011-04-11T23:30:21.715+02:00How about seeing Woody Allen's work as a repre...How about seeing Woody Allen's work as a representative of us, people, and our thoughts. Then, since we are not generally that sophisticated, first class, or any thing extraordinary, the movies shouldn't depict anything of that sort either. That could be the talent. Researchers, however, tend to view themselves and their works as noble magnificent abstractions of the world that could even be more "true" and valuable than life itself! Perhaps that's why easy isn't always there... or maybe i'm just ranting!ayehhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08851467958216867240noreply@blogger.com