Stewart’s dissertation, titled Indigenous Architecture through Indigenous Knowledge, eschews almost all punctuation. [...]
And so what? “There’s nothing in the (UBC dissertation) rules about formats or punctuation,” he insists.
A 61-year-old architect from the Nisga’a First Nation, Stewart explains that he “wanted to make a point” about aboriginal culture, colonialism, and “the blind acceptance of English language conventions in academia.”
— news.nationalpost.com
6 Comments
And nobody cares what was said
hmmmmm.....I always thought English conventions were academic.
Stunt-writing, little more.
This was not a surprise to his committee, unless none of the members asked to see chapter drafts. At the very least his Chair would have seen the "style" to be submitted. Also, in academic circles, it's as much about the Chair as the student, in terms of "guidance" as well as production. So that person got intellectually hard at the thought of directing the first such "groundbreaking" thesis.
Mazel tov.
For anyone else who might like to see this dissertation, here's a link to the pdf.
I think this is actually really interesting. Writing and the use of language are important tools of colonialism, and the author is pushing back on that.
Plus, he's already gotten more attention and downloads than probably 99% of doctoral dissertations--so I say, good for him!
I'm sort of amused by the previous comments about this being academic, stunt-writing, something that nobody cares about...yep, it's a doctoral dissertation, so that's the genre. :)
fuck man, why d'you make me click on this shit? that heart word cloud is lame. hallmark ee cummings. and our boy's thesis is a regular thesis... wtf? I mean, I didn't read the fucking thing, its a phd thesis, but I looked at it. it wasn't all carebear deconstructed or nuthin. No clue why this is clickable news? and I've got some indigenous colleagues (song lines and wotnot). dunno, thought it might be of visual interest and am such disappoint. such wow. much sadness.
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