Friday, December 23, 2005
Princeton comes in number one...
...for the most bizarre and politically correct college course, over at the Voice of Freedom (hat tip Michelle Malkin).
With two small children I have been thinking more recently about higher education. Specifically, I have questioned to myself the value of tenure for college professors, and at the same time wondered why tuition rates continue to so far outstrip the rate of inflation. But now that that I see the clear value proposition presented by these fine schools, I can see that my concerns are unwarrented.
The Dirty Dozen: America’s Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses
Princeton University’s The Cultural Production of Early Modern Women examines “prostitutes,” “cross-dressing,” and “same-sex eroticism” in 16th - and 17th - century England, France, Italy and Spain (emphasis added).
The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie: Race and Popular Culture in the United States at Occidental College in California explores ways “which scientific racism has been put to use in the making of Barbie [and] to an interpretation of the film The Matrix as a Marxist critique of capitalism.”
At The John Hopkins University, students in the Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ancient Egypt class view slideshows of women in ancient Egypt “vomiting on each other,” “having intercourse,” and “fixing their hair.”
Like something out of a Hugh Hefner film, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania offers the class Lesbian Novels Since World War II.
Alfred University’s Nip, Tuck, Perm, Pierce, and Tattoo: Adventures with Embodied Culture, mostly made up of women, encourages students to think about the meaning behind “teeth whitening, tanning, shaving, and hair dyeing.” Special projects include visiting a tattoo-and-piercing studio and watching Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bodybuilding film, Pumping Iron.
Harvard University’s Marxist Concepts of Racism examines “the role of capitalist development and expansion in creating racial inequality” (emphasis added). Although Karl Marx didn’t say much on race, leftist professors in this course extrapolate information on “racial oppression” and “racial antagonism."
Occidental College—making the Dirty Dozen list twice—offers a course in Stupidity, which compares the American presidency to Beavis and Butthead.
Students at the University of California—Los Angeles need not wonder what it means to be a lesbian. The Psychology of the Lesbian Experience reviews “various aspects of lesbian experience” including the “impact of heterosexism/stigma, gender role socialization, minority status of women and lesbians, identity development within a multicultural society, changes in psychological theories about lesbians in sociohistorical context.”
Duke University’s American Dreams/American Realities course supposedly unearths “such myths as ‘rags to riches,’ ‘beacon to the world,’ and the ‘frontier,’ in
defining the American character”Amherst College in Massachusetts offers the class Taking Marx Seriously: “Should Marx be giving another chance?” Students in this course are asked to question if Marxism still has any “credibility” remaining, while also inquiring if societies can gain new insights by “returning to [Marx’s] texts.” Coming to Marx’s rescue, this course
also states that Lenin, Stalin, and Pol Pot misapplied the concepts of Marxism.
Brown University’s Black Lavender: A Study of Black Gay & Lesbian Plays “address[es] the identities and issues of Black gay men and lesbians, and offer[s] various points of view from within and without the Black gay and lesbian artistic communities.”
Students enrolled in the University of Michigan’s Topics in Literary Studies: Ancient Greek/Modern Gay Sexuality have the pleasure of reading a “wide selection of ancient Greek (and a few Roman) texts that deal with same-sex love, desire, gender dissidence, and sexual behavior.”
I admit to some curiosity about how some of these courses are graded, but who am I to judge? To quote the immortal Emil Faber, "knowledge is good." Right?
Merry Christmas. I'm outta here.
2 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Dec 23, 06:00:00 PM:
By 
Solomon2, at
Mon Dec 26, 01:44:00 PM:
Believe it or not, I think the subject matter of some of these courses is a worthwhile study, but IMO undergraduates need to study the basics of the historical context before they truly appreciate the meaning of 17th-century cross-dressing, bulimia in the time of the Pharaohs, or Greek sexuality. (And that assumes these courses are taught properly, not just for the titillation factor.)
It should sober us to realize that a couple of centuries from now people may similarly consider "goofy" courses with such titles as: "Bodybuilding's Impact Upon 21st-Century American Government" or "The Importance of Hairstyle, Drugs, and Tie-Dye Fabric During the Johnson-Nixon Era." These things seem so obvious to us now, we don't bother to record them much - and that's exactly the sort of history that is likely to get lost, and what advanced students of history have to dig to seek.
