tetragrammatology wrote:
I was very happy to see more social science than I expected in the ICT set, but I was quite disappointed that the vast majority of pure social science/philosophy consisted of fill in the blank common links. At a national tournament, there is no excuse to not tossup works!
This claim -- that the "vast majority" of these tossups "consisted of fill in the blank common links" -- is actually not true. For instance, here are all the philosophy tossup answers in this year's ICT:
Plato's Sophist; Epictetus; "common sense"; "folly"; Lyotard; Nozick; Horkheimer; "ethics"; Hegel (from clues about his followers); "method"; "Russia" (from Russian thinkers); the Chinese Room argument; the problem of evil.
In retrospect, there could have been more answers on individual works, but I think that was merely a quirk (I didn't set out NOT to write on works, I just ended up writing these particular tossups). In general, when I look at a tossup like this one, I don't see why it is any less suitable for a national tournament than a tossup on, say, "The Postmodern Condition" itself:
This man collaborated with Jean-Loup Thebaud on a work comprised of seven days of dialogues about the idea of justice. In addition to ~Just Gaming~, this one-time member of the ~Socialism or Barbarism~ school used Lacanian ideas to attack structuralism in ~Discours, figure~. He introduced the idea of the (*) "{differend}," but is best known for a "report on knowledge" published in 1979. For 10 points--name this French thinker who was incredulous toward {meta-narratives} and wrote ~The Postmodern Condition~.
answer: Jean-Fran\,cois _Lyotard_ [lee-oh-tard]
However, I'm more interested in the general notion of "common link" tossups. I think this term is bandied about a bit freely in modern quizbowl parlance. First, as I've said on previous occasions, in some sense almost any tossup can be described as a "common link" tossup. For instance, this tossup is certainly a common link tossup:
In New Guinean myth, these animals are seen as reincarnations of the goddess Hainuwele [HYE-noo-WEL-ay]. During the Thesmophoria, held in honor of Demeter, these animals were tossed into underground chambers and left to rot for a year. In Egyptian myth, Seth changed into one of these while (*) fighting Horus. In the Book of Matthew, Jesus cast some demons into a group of these that then rushed into the sea. For 10 points--name this animal whose flesh may not be eaten by devout Jews or Muslims.
answer: _pig_s (or _swine_; accept _boar_s or _hog_s)
But this tossup is one too:
This author wrote about a man maddened by the "worn-off eyelids" of his lover in "The Leper," and he wrote about a woman who is a "love-machine / With clockwork joints of supple gold" in "Faustine." He wrote "I am tired of tears and laughter / And men that laugh and weep" in "The Garden of (*) Proserpine," while his best known work begins "When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces" and goes on to describe a boar hunt. For 10 points--name this Victorian poet of ~Atalanta in Calydon~.
answer: Algernon Charles _Swinburne_
In the first tossup, the "link" is "these are all mythical/religious incidents involving [this animal]," and the key to answering the tossup is figuring out that [this animal] = "pig." In the second tossup, the link is "these are all poems written by [this author]," and the key to answering the tossup is figuring out that [this author] = "Swinburne." In either case, you might figure that out by happening to know one of the clues described ("oh, Seth changed into a pig that time"; "oh, Swinburne wrote 'Faustine'"). Or you might work your way to the answer by some quick deductive reasoning ("who could this be? It's an English poet, I guess; sounds sort of decadent; he wrote about Greek mythology -- there's a strong chance it's Swinburne, but I'll wait for a decisive clue like, say, the best-known line from his major poetic work").
Obviously common link tossups can be written in a somewhat perfunctory fashion ("this word appears in X. It also appears in Y"), but then, so can
any kind of tossup ("This novel includes character X. It also includes character Y.") Assuming the questions are written well, I really don't see why one type of tossup should be, in theory, superior to any other. My own sense of "modern quizbowl aesthetics" is that hearing nothing but tossups of the same type (e.g., old-school "Biography Bowl") becomes monotonous, and that in general it's a good idea to ask about a mix of people, individual works, and concepts.
