(no subject)

[felis_ultharus]

The research continues. Today I'm reading up on the lesbian community in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

You know I'd always assumed that "butch" was just a political or fashion statement, the way it is now. In the 1950s, it seems to have been more of a job description. The butches of Montreal protected the femmes -- you actually had to get permission from one to speak to a femme.

They also played the role of bouncer. Plus the butches local army protecting the bar from bashers and the police. When the bars closed, the butches spread out to patrol the streets so the femmes could get home safely.

I had no idea the role was formalized.

Not sure how interesting anyone else finds this historical stuff, but I find it really neat. Today I went out looking for the original Joe Beef's tavern by the Old Port, another major Montreal landmark, and probably the only bar in the world to have ever used a real live bear as crowd control.

Comments

[yumemisama.livejournal.com]

Officially? Internet communities and comm theory. My auxiliary focus was actually in video games. I'm kind of surprised I got anyone to back me, but we have an electronic media professor here who's a total old-radio geek, and he was willing to sign off on my odder projects.

I'm not entirely sure what my work would be filed under; probably symbolic interactionism. Most of my professors have no bloody idea what I am talking about. I do a lot of half-assed speculations in the Goffmanian total institutions arena, too, having the particular views on my experience in public school that I do.

Mostly I just tell people what I think, and they affirm that it's sociology, and then I go play Kingdom Hearts some more. ^^;;;

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

It definitely sounds like symbolic interactionism to my (admittedly untrained) ear.

Which is good, because the structural functionalists and conflict theorists always seemed nuts, and I kind of thought of symbolic interactionism as the only sane branch of sociology.

Symbolic interactionists are actually studying the world around, and developing theories based on that. The other two branches have these grand, overreaching theories to which all of reality must bend, even to the breaking point if need be.

[yumemisama.livejournal.com]

I always thought of sociology as psychology + linguistics on a broad scale. The textbooks do not have a chapter on that, so I'm more or less on my own. I think at a larger university I'd have been filed under "social psychology", but NAU is a smallish school and doesn't support that as a major. We also don't offer AI as a major, but they do do things like hire a guy with a PhD in anthropology from Harvard to teach Computational Linguistics, so there's some minor support for it anyway.

When professors ask, I tell them I've read a lot of Douglas Hofstadter. Those who have also read Hofstadter know immediately where I'm coming from. Those who have not look very confused. I know he does a lot of *linguistic* symbolic interactionism, but that translates imperfectly into sociological terms.

I was briefly an anthropologist, but the entire department up here is devoted, fanatically, to value-free cultural relativism. I find developing opinions to be unavoidable when dealing with people, so that was right out. I was also briefly a modern languages major (I needed 30 hours of my primary language and 20 hours of my secondary to get that, and 100-level classes don't count. My first language was French and the second Japanese. Guess what they don't run 30 and 20 hours of here) and at the very beginning I was a dual major in mathematics and physics, until I decided their faculty was boring.

My research book collection is bizarre beyond belief. Samples of academic writing available upon request. ^_^

Kingdom Hearts?

[sorceror.livejournal.com]

You should talk to nagaina_ryuuoh. ^_^

Re: Kingdom Hearts?

[yumemisama.livejournal.com]

Kingdom Hearts forever!

The Sora x Riku vibe was so blatant that even my parents, who were watching/helping me play a couple of Christmases ago, were making wisecracks about it. Plus it's just, you know, gorgeous. ^_^

Re: Kingdom Hearts?

[sorceror.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't know anything about it myself. Just that nagaina_ryuuoh is herself a massive fan. Check out some of her posts. ^_^