[solalf]

From their bio: “My dissertation was a linguistic and cultural examination of disability as portrayed in Medieval Icelandic genre of the Sagas and Þættir of Icelanders.”

If they weren’t a professor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, you’d think this was straight out of Portlandia.

[bawolff]

What's so weird about that?

Studying how a specific ancient culture potrayed and felt about disability seems like a reasonable thing to study.

Sure, maybe its not as immediately useful as say science, but if you are going to study ancient cultures, analyzing the writings they left behind is one of the main ways to do it.

[JSteph22]

If it's not immediately useful, at what point in the future will it become useful?

Probably never.

[dpig_]

What kind of an anemic society do you want to live in, that everyone should only be an expert on capital-P Profitable subjects?

[bpodgursky]

It's not that it's unprofitable. It's that it's un-interesting.

It's not interesting now, and will never be interesting. It was selected as a topic because it hit the right buzzwords, and nobody will ever read it out of genuine interest. Nobody will re-think their worldview from the conclusions.

We live in a massive universe, in the most exciting time in human history. There are a thousand times more topics to research than there will ever be people or time to do so. To pick a pointless dissertation topic in this open, vast universe of potential is a profound waste of human potential. It's sad.

[JumpCrisscross]

> It's not interesting now, and will never be interesting

You’re writing off Icelandic culture as having nothing useful to suggest to modern civilisation. Given their parliament is the oldest continuously-operating one in the world, I’d say you’re dead wrong. What’s sad is that you’re dismissing books you haven’t read. Which is ironically pertinent to this article—it’s what India has been doing.

[bawolff]

> Nobody will re-think their worldview from the conclusions.

Did you read their dissertation? How do you know?

> It was selected as a topic because it hit the right buzzwords, and nobody will ever read it out of genuine interest

I don't think that is true. How societies balance group needs versus individual needs, especially for individuals with unique needs or who may not be able to contribute in the same way as most is a pretty perenial question.

Certainly in the greek context people have talked and argued about sparta's alleged harsh attitude towards disabled people since forever. Like its a pretty pernial source of debate, and has echoes in more modern movements such as eugenics in the 1900s thousands of years later.

All that is to say. This isn't a particularly buzzwordy topic. Most computer science disertations are more buzwordy than this.

[bawolff]

I consider history to be useful right now. The past influences the present and guides the future. I meant immediate as in like instructions on how to build a car.