The Humanities: Dead or Just Napping?

Today in the Telegraph:

Doctoral research [into the "art" of air guitar]has begun under the supervision of Britain's first professor of pop music, who is also overseeing a PhD into the art of "moshing", the vigorous head-shaking dance popular among concert crowds.

The study will try and answer why men and women play differently.

For the next three years, Amanda Griffiths, 32, a dance teacher from north Wales, will attempt to explain, in 60,000 words, why the attractions of an invisible guitar are generally overlooked by women, and how the girls who get involved do it differently.

To do so, she will use the complex arguments of French post-structuralist theorists such as Michel Foucault and Marxists such as Roland Barthes.

Miss Griffiths, who is funding her research at a cost of about £10,000, said: "The time seems right for a cultural study of phenomenon, because there is a very hardcore air guitar scene that has been bubbling away for years. But as a feminist I am interested in why there are so few women at events."

H/t Lucianne

Comments

[Carin]

Oh. Dear. Lord.

Do you think I should teach my kids a home school version of this- An "air guitar for beginners" sort of thing?

[gail]

Only if you have them read Foucault and Barthes first.

[Scott P]

They seem to have lots of free time for this kind of stuff.

[dorkafork]

She's also the author of Larry, Moe, Derrida: A Post-Structuralist Examination of the Three Stooges and the follow up Why You! I'll Deconstruct You, Wiseguy!

[Carin]

I dunno - you would think that the prerequisite would be to read the collected works of The Stones, The Who - plus, a healthy dose of MTV.

While my children have heard a bit of rock- they have no idea what MTV is, so I guess I will have to pass.

[Jake]

Guitars, like bagpipes, are symbolic penises. Females can just never seem to handle them naturally and fluidly, and that explains why there's never been a top tier female guitarist or air guitarist or bagpipe player...Even when they play well, theres something just not right about their stance or handling of the instrument or their bearing...

[gail]

Whereas women look very natural playing the cello. Especially in evening dress.

[CraigC]

I dunno, Jake. There are a lot of women who look perfectly natural handling a guitar.

[prairie biker]

Jake -

The purple haired daughter plays guitar and bass guitar. She Rocks!

I've never seen a woman playing the bagpipes. That's probably a good thing. I'd pitch a tent in my kilt.

[SeanH]

I am going to predict her findings, but in English:
A. About 75% of the music you can get out of an electric guitar is somewhat aggressive in sound. Oddly, men seem to be more attracted to that sort of thing than do women.
B. To a much greater degree than men, women tend to view public events as an opportunity for socialization. For some strange reason very few women believe that, of the many events that could occupy their limited time, an air guitar event provides social access to the most desirable collection of men.

My problem is I don't have the advanced education needed to stretch those four sentences out to about 500 pages of prattle so nobody's going to give me an opportunity to fritter away grant money like that.

[Ana]

You know that thing that you have to do when you get water in your ear at the pool? Where you tilt your head and jump around hoping to dislodge the water by breaking the surface tension of the droplet. Or whatever? That. Well, I'm going to do that until the idea of a PhD candidate doing research on air guitar or moshing are out of my head. It makes it hard for me to hear with those ideas in there. OUT! OUTOUTOUT!

[gail]

I'm just trying to get the idea of a PhD out of my head.

[Amanda Griffiths]

Thank you all for your comments. I'm finding it incredible that anyone is so bothered by what I'm doing. Just for the record, I'd like to state that I'm paying my own fees and am not in receipt of any sort of grant (phew! You were worried about your taxes, huh?) and it's my understanding that you can do a PhD in absolutely anything - what you're hoping to prove are your skills as a researcher.

As you were!