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Social Scientists and Weird Titles

There are some books out there with titles and author’s names (or their pen-names) that really make you question the sanity of Mankind in general, and writers in particular. Maybe I’m too straight-laced, but isn’t Menstrual Politics in Malaysia a little too esoteric, not to mention spacey, to write an entire book on?

Needless to say, this book has something to do with “culture”, “anthropology”, “feminism”, and the oh-so-overused term “construct”, which itself is, of course, a “construct”. You don’t have to open the book to know this (although one look at the content’s page is enough to verify the assumption), since any title containing the words “menstrual” and “politics”, two seemingly unrelated topics, must surely come from an aspiring academic desparate to attract some attention in a field so dull they’re perpetually craving for a “new perspective” – even if it doesn’t make sense. (For more information on these post-modern academic types, read Intellectual Impostures.) That is, if you can even get past the mumbo-jumbo terminology, mumbo-jumbo theories and random statistics/case studies/examples from the “real world”, which are supposed to, upon scrutiny and examination, prove a point.

Of course, even Menstrual Politics in Malaysia is rooted in tradition – a tradition started by the likes of Michel Foucault, who himself authored/edited books with shocking titles but incomprehensible contents, such as I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century.