The Quizbowl Resource Center

Hey, all.

Now that I've got a better handle on what's actually going on here, I'd like to announce this formally so I can figure out if it's going to happen at Chicago Open or at the 24 hours of quizbowl event.

I, Chris Ray, and Jerry Vinokurov are collaborating on a (first-ever!) doubles subject tournament in social science and philosophy, with a small but significant portion of other non-fiction, which would entail questions on literary criticism, historiography, and other things of that nature. Currently, the distribution in a 20/0 packet is going to be 10 Social Science, 8 Philosophy, and 2 "other", although we reserve the right to change that if we feel it isn't working out. I expect that the difficulty will be about on par with other subject tournaments that have occurred on CO weekend before.

Please post in this thread if you'd like to play in a tournament of this nature, and if you would, if you'd prefer to have it at Chicago Open or at the day long event.

YES, YES, OH GOD YES, OH PLEASE RIGHT THERE AT THE CHICAGO OPEN, OH YES!



I am formally declaring my interest in participating at such an event, thank you.

SnookerUSF wrote:YES, YES, OH GOD YES, OH PLEASE RIGHT THERE AT THE CHICAGO OPEN, OH YES!

What this guy says.

Ahmad, can I be on your team?

You complete me.

I would like to play in a tournament like this.

This would be fun. I'll probably be only good for a couple of econ tossups, but yeah, I'd definitely be interested in playing!

As to whether I'd be able to come, hmm, I can't be sure....

Gautam

ValenciaQBowl wrote:Ahmad, can I be on your team?
You complete me.

You had me at Re:

Given that there seems to be a lot of desire for this event, we definitely welcome any ideas. Trygve posted our intended skeletal distribution, but we both are interested in leaving some room for stuff that might not get to go into the qb canon in other events. I mean, if you aren't going to do that at a CO side event, when could you? Among the ideas discussed for this "extra" space are, as Trygve noted, literary criticism, historiography, and some other stuff. If you've got ideas on what "some other stuff" might mean, feel free to let us know.

So now that I have cleaned up after my initial post, some suggestions to help you along with what I think would be an awesome tournament (please understand that these are just personal suggestions and I am not claiming any particular entitlement, I have never written such an event, though I have stayed at Holiday Inn Express):

Other Stuff:
Literary Criticism/Critical Theory
Historiography

Additionally...
Film Theory/Criticism
General Non-fiction (Like general audience stuff Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter)
Religious Studies
Media Studies

Also do you think you could flesh out at this early stage, what sort of Philosophy distribution, because if I hear another David Hume related tossup, well...I'd be non-plussed. In a recent theme tournament with a philosophy packet, it seemed to be all ancient and Anglo-Analytic tradition based items, and I hope that will not be the general trend here. Some suggestions to this end would include a regional and chronological sub-distribution, e.g...

Chronologically:
1 Ancient
1 Medieval/Renaissance
2 Early Modern/Enlightenment
2 Romantic reaction up to the 20th.
2 20th-21st century.

Regionally:
4 Continental European (this includes ancient)
2 British/North American
2 Non-Western: Middle Eastern, South American, Chinese, Indian, etc...

And of course 2/0 Heidegger & Kierkegaard per packet! <==Essential.

Social Science:
3 Sociology/Psychology
2 Anthropology/Archeology
1 Economics
1 Linguistics
1 Other

I am sure this is horribly negligent of a sub-topic of valuable interest, but I hope at least some consideration will be given to this distribution.

Thanks,

Wow Ahmad, you rule.

Film Theory/Criticism
General Non-fiction (Like general audience stuff Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter)
Religious Studies
Media Studies

All of these comments are just my personal thoughts, rather than me officially speaking for the editor group:

I like the second "general non-fiction" thing, though I'm personally hesitant to employ stuff that's so current events-y. It's an interesting idea. As for religious studies, I am afraid I quite frankly don't know what you mean - would this not fall under anthropology? I suppose there are religious philosophers of the modern era, but (speaking just for myself here) I wouldn't be inclined to use a separate category for them. If we're talking more obscure modern theologians, man, am I going to be asking Jerry for help in judging accessibility here.

1 Ancient
1 Medieval/Renaissance
2 Early Modern/Enlightenment
2 Romantic reaction up to the 20th.
2 20th-21st century.

This is pretty much remarkably similar to what Trygve and I just fleshed out when we talked today. Basically pre-Socratics will not be haunting your dreams, and I'd like to stay within a general framework like this while allowing some branching. Some things defy easy categorization, but rest assured that this tournament will take advantage of the expanded philosophy (and SS, of course) canon that we'll be allotted as a CO subject tournament. We'll be all over the place but the emphasis will be on significant stuff, and significant stuff that doesn't normally come up that much in quizbowl is not in my mind yet another Greek whose name begins A-N-A-X.

4 Continental European (this includes ancient)
2 British/North American
2 Non-Western: Middle Eastern, South American, Chinese, Indian, etc...

I'm not particularly willing to embrace a geographical distribution, although Trygve and I did talk about making sure that general non-western stuff gets enough play. I'm not really sure if two non-western per packet is going to go down, mainly because with more recent stuff it becomes pointless to an extent to apply arbitrary geographic labels. Also, maybe I'm off base here since I claim absolutely no bigger picture knowledge of philosophy, but it seems to me like separating British/NA from mainland European isn't really necessary. Perhaps if we find we're trending a certain way, we'll come back and revisit this, or maybe there's some compelling reasoning to impose a hard distribution right off the bat? We're listening, certainly.

Anyway, I'll do my best to keep the Is-Ought Problem from ruining your weekends, but of course no promises. Thanks for the response.

DumbJaques wrote:...keep the Is-Ought Problem from ruining your weekends,

This is all I have ever wanted from life.

There should be a few pre-Socratics though. I mean, Parmenides, Anaximander, Thales...these guys came up with important ideas that are still discussed in modern philosophy, plus they're really fascinating.

Unless the tournament ends up being like 10/10 Douglas Hofstadter it's unlikely I'd be particularly good at it, so I'll volunteer to read/scorekeep/do stats/whatever.

This event sounds great. I'd play it, play it so hard. And, don't feel too shy about throwing in pre-Socratics, I think they kick ass.

DumbJaques wrote:If we're talking more obscure modern theologians, man, am I going to be asking Jerry for help in judging accessibility here.

More tossups on the fifth most important book of Paul Tillich plz.

Also, I'll put myself up for the slaughter, assuming I show up to CO.

I'm notably awful at this stuff - I think I should draw the line between "this will help me get better" and "i'll only get stuff when other people neg, and then not all the time." I'll read/scorekeep.

cornfused wrote:I'm notably awful at this stuff - I think I should draw the line between "this will help me get better" and "i'll only get stuff when other people neg, and then not all the time." I'll read/scorekeep.

What he said, assuming I can attend at all.

Also, for social science - no love for political science?

I said:

SnookerUSF wrote:I am sure this is horribly negligent of a sub-topic of valuable interest, but I hope at least some consideration will be given to this distribution.

Then:

evilmonkey wrote:Also, for social science - no love for political science?

Response: I suck at life, yes-political science is muy importante (The broken Spanish is for emphasis).

evilmonkey wrote:Also, for social science - no love for political science?

As a matter of fact, I'm a political science/economics major, and would love to see more political science represented in quizbowl. I expect that I'll write some political science questions for the miscellaneous social science part of the sub-distribution (about 1 per packet right now). Political science in quizbowl seems to have taken the form of IR scholarship, so I expect that most if not all of the political science questions will be about that. You might also expect some questions on political philosophers/theorists as part of the philosophy or "other" distribution.

I struggle to write social science questions, so I would be more useful as a moderator. I plan to be at the Chicago Open for all three days, but I am not informed about a 24-hour quiz bowl marathon. I am new to this message board, so I have not found the date and the location of this marathon

Happy belated Easter Sunday,
Rom Masrour
UIC/CPS

Rom - that's in New Jersey on the second of August. See here for details.

Ryan Westbrook wrote:And, don't feel too shy about throwing in pre-Socratics, I think they kick ass.

DENIED

Of course, I will play in this.

MaS

I will certainly be playing this, and I have a tentative teammate.

I am interested in playing. If you're interested in playing with me, have your people call my people.

---
Here's a list of people who have "signed up" on here, if that helps anyone. The field looks pretty good, of course.

Ahmad + Borglum
Christian Carter
Trevor Davis
Jonathan Magin
Brendan Byrne
Gautam
Andrew Hart
Ryan Westbrook
Pat Freeburn
Eric Mukherjee
Mike Sorice
Dees + Mystery Teammate
Billy Beyer

Sign me up as well.

I suppose I'll sign up for this. Someone has to get last place.

On second thought, I would also like to enter these doubles/triples/quadruples, too, and I am currently searching for a teammate in case Tim Hartman cannot stay Sunday night. As I have been humbly suggesting this evening, triples and/or quadruples could keep these side tournaments moving more swiftly, especially since Seth Teitler has just cautioned us that 11 PM building closures might be enforced.

Happy early D-Day (the day on which any military operation commences) anniversary,
Rom Masrour
CPS/UIC

i'll play

wd4gdz wrote:I am interested in playing. If you're interested in playing with me, have your people call my people.

---
Here's a list of people who have "signed up" on here

Pat Freeburn

Since my chance of attending CO is iffy at best, and there may be some theoretical cap to the number of people/teams who can play, you can take me off this list for now. My apologies to anyone looking for a terrible teammate for the sake of inflated PPG.

Who wants to be my teammate for this? Please email me at [email protected].

I wanna play, I need a partner, weak at econ/law/politics and philosophy (esp early): recfreq at yahoo dot com.

Hey, please sign up a team of me and Guy Tabachnick.

Billy Beyer and I are forming a Dream Team.

I'd like to sign up, now that I'm reasonably sure I'm coming.

Also, I support the call for a 2/0 Kierkegaard and Heidegger per packet distribution.

I am playing with Shantanu.

Anybody need a partner for this event? Email me! [email protected]

Jeremy Eaton and I are now on the team destined for last place in this tournament.

Magin and I are on a team.

Hey, all. This is the field right now for this tournament:

Teams:

Eric Mukherjee + Jonathan Magin
Jeremy Eaton + Mike Bentley
Matt Lafer + Chris Carter
Gautam Kandlikar + Arnav Moudgil
Guy Tabachnick + Matt Weiner
Andrew Hart + Billy Beyer
Ahmad Ragab + Chris Borglum
Charlie Dees + Bruce Arthur
Mike Sorice + Andrew Yaphe
Seth Teitler + Seth Samelson
Ray Luo + Ryan Westbrook
Trevor Davis + Brendan Byrne

People who have said they are coming, but haven't yet told me who they're playing with:

People who have told me that they'll stick around on Sunday night to help out, thereby becoming awesome (if they weren't already):

Evan Silberman
Rob Carson
Greg Peterson
Bryce Durgin (maybe)
Carsten Gehring
Katy Peters
Evan Nagler (maybe)
Rom Masrour

Presumably I, Chris, and Jerry will be reading, so I think we're covered on this front, although if you want to come help out, I won't turn you away and you'll earn my eternal gratitude.

If you're not on one of those lists, but think you should be, please e-mail me. If you're on one of those lists, but think you shouldn't be, please e-mail me.

We're planning on writing a total of 10 packets. The format is posted below.

EDITED: a whole bunch of times

I'd be alright with two brackets of six, five games, a rebracket into a top and bottom bracket, and five more games, with cumulative record deciding the champ (and various appropriate tiebreakers if necessary). That way all of the packets are played, and honestly I think that's more important in the case of events like this than it is to crown a definitive champion.

I think I said on the IRC that I'd be willing to help out as needed, and that offer still stands.

Bruce Arthur is my teammate here.

Am I really not on your list of available helpers/readers/whatever-ers? I'll be around, so let me know if I can make myself useful.

Trevor Davis and I have agreed to team up for this tournament.

I am now playing with Arnav Moudgil, as Shantanu, unfortunately, will not be able to attend CO.

Gautam