Among The Little People
We are in fairly constant contact with furniture.
Yes, it’s time to sup from the deep, sorrowful well of feminist scholarship and thereby discover previously hidden knowledge. Specifically, regarding the “problematic” nature of preschool seating, on which Dr Jane Bone, a senior lecturer at Monash University, Melbourne, focuses her keen mental cutting beam:
Then there is the ordinary chair, with a seat, back and four legs, usually arranged around a circular table… This chair is ubiquitous. I rarely go into an early childhood environment where there is not some version of this chair. Designed for children, it is sometimes metal, sometimes wooden, either painted or plain, but always – and this is my point – small.
Do try to keep up. This “child-sized furniture, suited to [a child’s] height and weight,” is of course the aforementioned problematic furniture, for reasons that will now become all too clear:
In my first intra-active encounter with the small chair,
Which I’m assuming entails bending one’s knees and lowering one’s buttocks.
I felt that it talked back to me
And what did the tiny chair say?
I felt that it talked back to me about the preschool as a workplace that is gendered, feminised, child-focused and ultimately disempowering.
And in particular,
The small chair passes on a very important commandment to teachers: “Thou shalt not sit down” – you are here to work.
This traumatic and “haunting” experience – being a grown-up among lots of small chairs – apparently reveals “the undervalued nature of teaching young children.” A point Dr Bone underlines with an anecdote involving a teacher who, during a meeting, perched on a chair intended for children, rather than searching out a more suitably proportioned one. Damning and conclusive, I think you’ll agree. And Dr Bone’s mental reach extends beyond mere anecdote:
In order to recapture this [experience]… I went to IKEA to sit on some small chairs.
Selfless, fearless dedication. Behold:
Dr Bone tells us that her “methodological approach is intra-active and diffractive,” which seems to necessitate disdaining that most unfashionable demographic, i.e., “dead white males,” and namedropping Jacques Derrida’s Spectres of Marx, the profundity of which was touched on here. She also informs us that her work is “not necessarily logical.”
Via Real Peer Review.
On behalf of Australian taxpayers I’d like to thank Dr Bone for her important work.
Designed for children, it is sometimes metal, sometimes wooden, either painted or plain, but always – and this is my point – small.
Mind… blown.
It’s hard to keep up with all the revelations.
And what did the tiny chair say?
You’re too fat?
Pre-school is child-focused? Wow. Send in the clowns!
It’s hard to keep up with all the revelations.
“A way of thinking about the past is that it infects the present.”
Casting my mind back over fifty years, I recall that the chairs in my infants school had round backs, perhaps to prevent us falling off at the side and to enable us the better to focus on becoming systematically disempowered. I remember well my gendered, feminised, child-centred oppressors – kindly Miss Dennis and bossy Miss Lewis. The chairs seemed the right size at the time though I suspect, like Dr Bone, I would find them rather small now. But I’m typing this in a grown-up version, another chair with a round back – a Wishbone chair, a Danish design classic which I chose without considering its similarity to the chairs in which I first learnt to toil. Until now I’d never considered the significance of this. If only I were a scholar and could produce a piece of autoethnography about it… though if I did I wouldn’t be pictured wearing anything quite as naff as a leopard-skin print. Whatever happened to academic tweed?
The chairs seemed the right size at the time
Ah, but you’re missing the staggering subtlety and complexities of Dr Bone’s “research,” which is based on “memory work” and “embodied knowing,” and departs from mere evidence and logic as and when convenient, i.e., quite often.
Gosh, I never knew Maria Montessori invented child-sized furniture!
Anyway, does anyone know what ‘intra-active’ and ‘diffractive’ mean? Obviously they’re supposed to be a barrier to prevent us ordinary little people laughing at the emperor’s new clothes, but are they real words?
“Intra-active” refers to the “mutual constitution of entangled agencies.” Obviously.
See figure 2.
I felt that it talked back to me about the preschool as a workplace that is gendered, feminised, child-focused and ultimately disempowering.
But was she wearing biometric underpants? I want to hear their side of the story. Because frankly, I think Dr. Bone is putting words in the chair’s mouth here.
If you hear furniture yammering on like this, you may be projecting. Yes, of course, projection is a virtue in liberal academic research these days, but please: we all know furniture has a very limited vocabulary.
*Ahem*
“Well she came into IKEA on one cold December day
As she sat upon the tiny chair you could hear all the people say:
‘She’s from the university, she’s long and she’s tall
She came here from Melbourne, she’s the Monash Cannonball'”.
Neighbourhood of B, fellas.
I’d love to comment on the linked work with authority but I must confess I only got as far as the word ‘hauntology’ before I involuntarily rolled my eyes and hit the ‘back’ button…
But was she wearing biometric underpants?
– Which brings me to my comment – “Please, PLEASE don’t wear a skirt, Ma’am!”
Ah, but you’re missing the staggering subtlety and complexities of Dr Bone’s “research,”…
Much deeper than you have let on, as I read from the abstract:
Yes, hauntology.
OK, ghostly kindergarten chairs, if you say so. Casper could not be reached for comment.
There is no comment about whether the small kids chairs are oppressing fat kids, as they do “adult” students. This, I think, is a serious gap in the otherwise scholarly* paper.
*recycled bafflegab
I see from the abstract that, “[a]n assemblage of personal narratives, memories, works of fiction, history, conversations and media reports, along with the documentation of a performative act, is produced.” From this “scholarship,” we learn that, “Now and to come, the chair is a trace, a symbol, an instrument of torture and object of desire.”
To which, I would respond, “and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
I don’t suppose Professor Bone considered that putting 4-6 year old children in adult sized furniture would tend to reinforce both the children’s “smallness” and the dictatorial nature of the adult teacher. It would seem that would be more problematic than constructing a classroom conducive to their learning.
@Farnsworth
I see we were entertaining similar thoughts.
We are in fairly constant contact with furniture.
Also carpeting. And walls.
…putting 4-6 year old children in adult sized furniture would tend to reinforce both the children’s “smallness” and the dictatorial nature of the adult teacher.
Throw in some nonsense from Derrida and Foucalt (the weird one, not Leon with his pendulum) and I think you have yourself a paper or two and at least an assistant professorship in the offing.
…along with the documentation of a performative act…
From David above, “Subject students bent their knees and lowered their buttocks.”
If that isn’t worth a grant, I don’t know what is.
frankly, I think Dr. Bone is putting words in the chair’s mouth here.
Are you questioning our senior lecturer’s scholarship? That’s exactly what a patriarchal oppressor would do, you know.
Jacques Derrida’s Spectres of Marx, the profundity of which was touched on here.
God help me, I clicked on the link.
Damn you, Thompson.
God help me, I clicked on the link.
No refunds. Credit note only.
I felt it talked back to me…
I have a client who believes furniture talks to him. He lives in a canvas smock in a room with no ligature points. Until now, I had no idea he was a postmodern genius. Possibly due to his tendency to be super stabby.
“[D]oes anyone know what ‘intra-active’ mean[s]?
I assume it involves only Professor Bone and her own mind. In other words, “Applied Solipsism.”
I assume it involves only Professor Bone and her own mind.
It may not be her mind…Passive, active and intra-active (self) touch.
The jokes, they write themselves.
I assume it involves only Professor Bone and her own mind. In other words, “Applied Solipsism.”
In this case at least, it does seem to be a pretext for wildly subjective license and indulging in so-called “memory work,” “embodied knowing” and dogmatically-convenient claims without any obligation to substantiate those claims, or even to present them in a manner that’s not laughable.
See also critical race theory.
N.B. the use of the word “diffractive,” mentioned above. Once again, we see the postmodern “scholar’s” tendency to toss words about–in this case one used in physics to refer to the property of bending waves–in a manner designed to flummox those of us who are uninitiated into the club. It’s pure gibberish, but that’s the point. It’s not meant to convey any information. It’s designed to bludgeon the reader into submission, because we fear admitting that we’re not smart enough to understand the deep, deep thoughts of the worthy writing same. < Spit > It reminds of the time Judith Butler used the term “Möbius strip” in some paper which was completely nonsensical, solely for the purpose of eliciting knowing nods from grad students like the now-professor Jones desperately seeking tenure.
(Now that I think about it, David may have discussed this previously on these pages years ago, and I may have inadvertently swiped his observations. My bad.)
Physics envy, and logic fail:
“Physicists use complex nomenclature to describe things. Physicists are clever and respected thinkers talking about difficult things. Therefore if I use complex nomenclature to describe things, that’s because they are difficult, and I am clever and will be respected.”
See also Feynman’s cargo cult science.
Now that I think about it, David may have discussed this previously on these pages years ago,
The subject has cropped up once or twice over the years. Though I think the most vivid example is still the Dadaist blathering of self-styled cyber-feminist Dr Carolyn Guertin, from one of my earliest posts, and whose seemingly random pilfering of terms from physics and astronomy is, even now, a thing to behold.
[ Added: ]
A brief but typical taste, from Guertin’s essay, Wanderlust: The Kinesthetic Browser in Cyberfeminist Space:
Ten years on, I still haven’t figured out what, exactly, a “gap or trajectory of subjecthood” is – and why it’s both “multiple” and “present.” Or why this should be preferable to, or different from, one that’s multiple while absent, or singular while absent. Or singular while present. Alas, nowhere in Guertin’s essay are any clues forthcoming. One is supposed to just know, or at least pretend to.
Well she came into IKEA on one cold December day
Awesome! That’s a staple of my bluegrass group!
Yes. That’s the post I remember–back when I was too sober to leave a comment.
God help me, I clicked on the link.
Wise to exercise one’s judgement in these matters. I happily click on any provided by our host, certain other ones (you know, that lead to that Great Repository of Ultimate Arbitrations) not so much.
back when I was too sober to leave a comment.
Ah, personal growth.
Reading those passages from Derrida, I can only think of Mark Twain’s direct translation back into English of a French translation of his own “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”. The final result made about as much sense.
Does anyone else get the feeling that if the protein man were starting out today, he’d get a professorship somewhere?
“We are in fairly constant contact with furniture”
Reality… not so much.
“If they fall for it, I get a grant.”
“If it gets called out as absurd, I can claim it was just a joke, and say the haters have no sense of humor.”
Poe’s Law strikes again.
“[…] her work is “not necessarily logical.”
It’s definitely not rational.
I think Cathy Newman should do an interview with her, posthaste. You can’t let such cutting-edge thinking slip through the net.
I am always surprised how much haters of ‘white patriarchy’ and ‘dead white males’ seem to be influenced by pasty cadavers like Derrida and Marx.
Also carpeting. And walls.
Carpeting and walls can be so oppressive. Also air…
Does anyone else get the feeling that if the protein man were starting out today…
Protein Wisdom. I had no idea.
Protein Wisdom. I had no idea.
Ditto.
And what did the tiny chair say?
I bet you didn’t think you’d be typing those words when you woke up this morning.
I bet you didn’t think you’d be typing those words when you woke up this morning.
Heh. No. But then this happens quite a lot. You’d think I’d learn.
Also carpeting. And walls.
Don’t give Dr. Bone any ideas.
I wonder what ideas would enter her head, if the classroom had adult sized chairs.
Allow me to imagine: “The size clearly patriarchal, emphasizing a lack of power” etc.
I wonder what ideas would enter her head, if the classroom had adult sized chairs.
That’s the thing with this sort of, um, scholarship. You can be pretty sure that the conclusions were arrived at long before any thinking took place. If indeed any did.
OT,
“Air stewardess turned glamour model with 32S breasts who decided to ‘become black’ with extreme tanning injections claims her once blonde hair is now ‘naturally African”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5297433/Martina-Big-claims-hair-naturally-African.html
A brief but typical taste, from Guertin’s essay
(O_O)
That’s another Alan Sokal prank, surely?
“We are in fairly constant contact with furniture.
Also carpeting. And walls.”
And glue vapours, or some other brain-rotting chemical.