From: "Pam Stello" <stello-AT-socrates.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: bourdieu on literary prizes
Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 17:15:24 -0700


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Bradford DeLong wrote:

So is the myth of individual genius something created in popular
culture (and that then functions as a background force justifying
hierarchy and devaluing collective and group action)? Or does it
extend its tentacles into modern science also?

In response, i think the modern myth of the individual scientific genius was created in 1833 with the invention of the term "the scientist" to describe the members of the 3rd annual mting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Through the professionalization of science the myth became part of popular culture. I believe the myth does justify hierarchy as natural and definately devaluing collective action and the fact that all action is collective. It also extends "back" into science bcause there are the popular myths that there is a "math gene" that is in currency even among professors in math here at Berkeley. I talk about math because I think, as you say, physics, and other disciplines are very aware of the collective nature of knowledge production whereas math is still seen by many, even by academics as an individual, male domain. I believe that change in the hierarchies in the university among disciplines and academics won't change until we collectively understand that math is a practical activity . Mathematicians still believe that mathematics is universal knowledge and that myth is maintained in relation with the genius myth in math; they work together. Universal knowledge in math is signified as male as part of the genius myth and stands in contrast to the humanities and social sciences that are signifed as female.

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Bradford DeLong
  To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
  Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 11:27 AM
  Subject: Re: bourdieu on literary prizes


  Pam Stello wrote:

  >In response to Professor DeLong's question, I'm just beginning to
  >understand scientific genius as a commodity, specifically trying to
  >understand it as the money form in Bourdieu's symbolic economy. I'm
  >finding that as a commodity, scientific genius might relate to
  >Michael Franklin's point about interest in Bourdieu's work, though
  >not sure. I'm new at this. So as Michael asked, please be easy on
  >me. Also, because I'm new at this work, I would appreciate any
  >comments people might have.
  >
  >My main argument so far, using historical case studies, is that
  >scientific genius as a commodity masks the collective nature of the
  >production of scientific knowledge, erasing the labor of men,
  >minorities, women, etc, in the production process. The mystification
  >of the collective production of knowledge is like money as the
  >ultimate alienating fetish. Because part of the power of scientific
  >genius is that while it has no intrinsic value (it does not exist
  >other than as a commodity for exchange), we all recognize it as the
  >universal ideal of individual achievement.

  But don't scientists (at least, modern scientists) have a more adult
  view of the process? I mean, we speak of Einstein's theory of special
  relativity. But take a class in relativity, and you run into the
  Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction, the Poincare group, Minkowski spaces,
  Lorentz transformations, et cetera--all because it is clear that a
  large number of physicists at the start of the twentieth century
  (chief among whom were Lorentz, Poincare, and Minkowski, and most of
  whom were talking to each other closely) were thinking along lines
  that might easily have led them to right an article called "On the
  Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," and that a combination of luck,
  circumstances, and background meant that Albert Einstein get there
  first (plus, of course, the fact that Einstein was terrifyingly
  smart--but all these people are terrifyingly smart).

  So is the myth of individual genius something created in popular
  culture (and that then functions as a background force justifying
  hierarchy and devaluing collective and group action)? Or does it
  extend its tentacles into modern science also?

  >It points always to a socially produced absence and this absence is
  >signified by gender, race, and nation, especially gender.

  As in that Watson and Crick's Nobel Prize *really* belongs to
  Rosalind Franklin and 199 other X-Ray Crystallographers?

  >What I'm working on now is tracing the commoditization of scientific
  >genius through four historical examples, Davy and Faraday as a
  >proto-type example, and Darwin, Freud and Einstein in depth, looking
  >at how the myth of their genius and the myth of individual knowledge
  >production is made real and the false divisions it creates and upon
  >which it depends, especially gender, in the discourse of three
  >examples of mid-level popular science writing.


  Wonderful topic...

  I'm sure you don't need an economist as your outside committee
  member, but if you ever do get stuck for an outside member to satisfy
  the bureaucracy, please keep me in mind...


  Yours,


  Brad DeLong

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----- Original Message -----

From: Bradford DeLong

To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 11:27 AM

Subject: Re: bourdieu on literary prizes

Pam Stello wrote:

>In response to Professor DeLong's question, I'm just beginning to
>understand scientific genius as a commodity, specifically trying to
>understand it as the money form in Bourdieu's symbolic economy. I'm
>finding that as a commodity, scientific genius might relate to
>Michael Franklin's point about interest in Bourdieu's work, though
>not sure. I'm new at this. So as Michael asked, please be easy on
>me. Also, because I'm new at this work, I would appreciate any
>comments people might have.
>
>My main argument so far, using historical case studies, is that
>scientific genius as a commodity masks the collective nature of the
>production of scientific knowledge, erasing the labor of men,
>minorities, women, etc, in the production process. The mystification
>of the collective production of knowledge is like money as the
>ultimate alienating fetish. Because part of the power of scientific
>genius is that while it has no intrinsic value (it does not exist
>other than as a commodity for exchange), we all recognize it as the
>universal ideal of individual achievement.

But don't scientists (at least, modern scientists) have a more adult
view of the process? I mean, we speak of Einstein's theory of special
relativity. But take a class in relativity, and you run into the
Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction, the Poincare group, Minkowski spaces,
Lorentz transformations, et cetera--all because it is clear that a
large number of physicists at the start of the twentieth century
(chief among whom were Lorentz, Poincare, and Minkowski, and most of
whom were talking to each other closely) were thinking along lines
that might easily have led them to right an article called "On the
Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," and that a combination of luck,
circumstances, and background meant that Albert Einstein get there
first (plus, of course, the fact that Einstein was terrifyingly
smart--but all these people are terrifyingly smart).

So is the myth of individual genius something created in popular
culture (and that then functions as a background force justifying
hierarchy and devaluing collective and group action)? Or does it
extend its tentacles into modern science also?

>It points always to a socially produced absence and this absence is
>signified by gender, race, and nation, especially gender.

As in that Watson and Crick's Nobel Prize *really* belongs to
Rosalind Franklin and 199 other X-Ray Crystallographers?

>What I'm working on now is tracing the commoditization of scientific
>genius through four historical examples, Davy and Faraday as a
>proto-type example, and Darwin, Freud and Einstein in depth, looking
>at how the myth of their genius and the myth of individual knowledge
>production is made real and the false divisions it creates and upon
>which it depends, especially gender, in the discourse of three
>examples of mid-level popular science writing.


Wonderful topic...

I'm sure you don't need an economist as your outside committee
member, but if you ever do get stuck for an outside member to satisfy
the bureaucracy, please keep me in mind...


Yours,


Brad DeLong

**********************************************************************
Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
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