UBC/BPAL

[truepenny]

UBC

Albert, Alexa. Brothel: Mustang Ranch and its Women. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.

This is a much better book than Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery. The fact that it's "popular" nonfiction rather than "academic" nonfiction means that the prose is readable--WHY IS THIS? WHY CAN WE NOT HAVE BOOKS THAT ARE BOTH INTELLECTUALLY RIGOROUS AND READABLE? WHY WHY WHY?

*ahem*

I digress.

And in any event, although not theorized, Albert's book is intellectually rigorous--more so than Butler's, as Albert goes ahead and questions all those assumptions about morality that Butler simply applies with a trowel. Nothing in the world of Brothel is simple, and Albert pays attention to every complexity. She neither has nor pretends to have answers, but she has a lot of careful observations, both of prostitutes and their customers--and of the forces outside the brothel, both pro and con--that make hash of all the "answers" various persons put forward.

---

BPAL


Cheshire Cat: I liked this a lot; mirrorthaw was relatively indifferent. But the sharpness of the grapefruit pleased me immensely.

The Raven: This contrived to be both sickly sweet (at a distance and where I got some on my shirt) and reminiscent of unwashed werewolf à la Whitechapel. It is the second scent I have taken a shower to get rid of.

Plunder: Which I'm wearing now. This smells like a particular tea one of my aunts sent me from Seattle when I was in college. Not sure I'd want to smell like this on a regular basis, but it's spicy-sweet and very pleasant.

Comments

[cabell.livejournal.com]

You have hit upon my own personal point of rage in academia. Incredibly dense and complicated prose that makes no sense to anyone does not mean that you are extra smart. It means that you are a BAD WRITER. A bad writer given a pass, if not actively encouraged, by academe, but still: a bad writer. This is part of the reason why, when I finish my diss, I want to try to sell it to a commercial publisher rather than an academic one.

[romp.livejournal.com]

AMEN

[lilithsaintcrow.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately our academic systems praise and reward dense, unreadable prose. Didn't they do a study where the more complex words were used in a paper (complex, not synonymous or precise) the paper was graded higher? I wish I could Google that study up, it was a whiz-bang to read about.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh, and people have scammed academic journals that way. It's like the Emperor's New Clothes: admitting you don't understand is admitting you're a subhuman cave dweller who speaks in grunts and has a brain the size of a walnut. And nobody wants to admit that.

[lilithsaintcrow.livejournal.com]

Heh. No matter how true or untrue it may be, admission is the sin we must not commit.

And clear readable prose is specific. It sets out assertions that can be challenged and requires one to set one's reputation on the line behind one's research and assumptions. If one has any reservation about one's position or one's research, setting it out in clear readable prose invites *gasp* people to read, understand, and comment on it.

We can't have that, now can we.

With so much blood on the floor in academia, it's a natural (but regrettable) reflex to dress up one's position in unreadable prose to sound smarter. And not so incidentally, to confuse anyone who might be after your tenure. *grin*

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

The only thing The Raven and Whitechapel have in common is musk, and they're different musks. Odd.

I can't stand scents with violet in them myself. They mostly remind me of those old-fashioned C. Howard's violet mints. Old lady breath freshener.

[comrade-cat.livejournal.com]

>WHY CAN WE NOT HAVE BOOKS THAT ARE BOTH INTELLECTUALLY RIGOROUS AND >READABLE? WHY WHY WHY?

THAT IS MY EXACT QUESTION!!!

Thank you. :)

By the way, the last readable academic work I read (on current Turkish hijab/veiling politics) was priced at over $100 on amazon (almost a dollar per page). This is another reason it's hard to find readable stuff.

[susannag.livejournal.com]

I really wish I knew why we can't have readable academic works.

The worst thing is that when one is written, the author is usually labeled a "popularizer," and viewed with contempt within academe.

I guess the best thing we can do is publicize the good, readable works that we actually manage to find.