Are You Taking Strange And Wacky College Courses? Can’t Beat These!
The Young America’s Foundation has compiled their annual list of “America’s most bizarre and politically correct college courses” and it’s pretty shocking. Here’s their “dirty dozen.”
12. Swarthmore College’s Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism “deconstruct[s] terrorism” and “build[s] on promising nonviolent procedures to combat today’s terrorism.” The “non-violent” struggle Blacks pursued in the 1960s is outlined as a mode for tackling today’s terrorism.
11. Duke University’s American Dreams/American Realities course seeks to unearth “such myths as ‘rags to riches,’ ‘beacon to the world,’ and the ‘frontier,’ in defining the American character.”
10. Cornell University’s Cyberfeminism investigates “the emergence of cyberfeminism in theory and art in the context of feminism/post feminism and the accelerated technological developments of the last thirty years of the twentieth century.”
9. Johns Hopkins University offers Mail Order Brides: Understanding the Philippines in Southeast Asian Context, which is a supposedly deep look into Filipino kinship and gender.
8. Native American Feminisms at the University of Michigan looks at the development of “Native feminist thought” and its “relationship both to Native land-based struggles and non-Native feminist movements.”
7. Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism is Mount Holyoke College’s attempt to analyze race. The class seeks to spark thought on: “What is whiteness?” “How is it related to racism?” “What are the legal frameworks of whiteness?” “How is whiteness enacted in everyday practice?” And how does whiteness impact the “lives of whites and people of color?”
6. Border Crossings, Borderlands: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Immigration is University of Washington’s way of exploring the immigration debate. The class allegedly unearths what is “highlighted and concealed in contemporary public debates about U.S. immigration” policy.
5. Occidental College — making the list twice for the second year in a row — offers Blackness, which elaborates on a “new blackness,” “critical blackness,” “post-blackness,” and an “unforgivable blackness,” which all combine to create a “feminist New Black Man.”
4. Students enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania’s Adultery Novel read a series of 19th and 20th century works about “adultery” and watch “several adultery films.” Students apply “various critical approaches in order to place adultery into its aesthetic, social and cultural context, including: sociological descriptions of modernity, Marxist examinations of family as a social and economic institution” and “feminist work on the construction of gender.”
3. Amherst College in Massachusetts offers Taking Marx Seriously: “Should Marx be given another chance?” Students in this class are asked to question if Marxism still has “credibility,” 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.
2. Queer Musicology at the University of California-Los Angeles explores how “sexual difference and complex gender identities in music and among musicians have incited productive consternation” during the 1990s. Music under consideration includes works by Schubert and Holly Near, Britten and Cole Porter, and Pussy Tourette.
And the number one most bizarre and politically correct college course in America as determined by Young America’s Foundation is:
1. Occidental College’s The Phallus covers a broad study on the relation “between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism.”
It seems to me like all of these are courses created out of thin air with little to no backing fact checking by tenured professors in order to avoid having to actually teach legitimate and substantive information to students. A waste of tuition.
Young America’s Foundation Spokesman Jason Mattera remarks, “The Dirty Dozen demonstrates that professors still have an obsession with dividing people on the basis of their skin color, sexuality, and gender. They also can’t seem to shake off a strong admiration for Karl Marx and his murderous ideology — apparently the 100-plus million totalitarian regimes have murdered over the years is not enough?!”
Other courses that could have easily made the list (”Dishonorable Mentions“) include UC-Berkeley’s Sex Change City: Theorizing History in Genderqueer San Francisco; Cornell University’s Sex, Rugs, Salt, & Coal; Hollins University’s Drag: Theories of Transgenderism and Performance; and Hollins University’s Lesbian Pulp Fiction.
According to Christian Post Reporter Lillian Kwon the conservative foundation further cited recent studies that found only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment while more than half can name at least two family members of “The Simpsons.” Also, only 31 percent of college grads could read and comprehend complex books and 40 percent of college students need remedial work in math and English.
In an op-ed piece published in the L.A. Times, author Charlotte Allen wrote, in part:
The problem that the Young America’s Foundation list, first issued in 1995, highlights isn’t simply the hollowing-out of the traditional humanities and social sciences disciplines at colleges and their replacement by crude indoctrination sessions in whatever is ideologically fashionable — although that’s a serious issue. At Occidental, for instance, it seems nearly impossible to study any field, save for the hard sciences, that doesn’t include “race, class and gender” among its topics. Even the Shakespeare course at Occidental this semester focuses on “cultural anxieties over authority, race, colonialism and religion” during the age of the Bard.
The bigger problem is that too much of American higher education has lost any notion of what its students ought to know about the ideas and people and movements that created the civilization in which they live: Who Plato was or what happened at Appomattox.
Instead of the carefully crafted core programs that once guided students through the basics of literature, philosophy, history and the social sciences, most colleges now offer smorgasbords of unrelated classes for their students to sample in order to fulfill requirements. And the professors stock the smorgasbords with whatever the theorists they idolize tells them is the new new thing.
And our University system is laughed at by the rest of the world? Gee, I wonder why?
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January 12th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Thank you for posting this sad, sad list of very strange college courses. Colleges have gone the way of the major media - it’s all about what sells - race baiting and sex!
January 12th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Good garsh..higher education?..what a joke!
January 12th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Um, actually, our university system is the admired by the rest of the world. Students in India, China, Japan, Italy, the UK, Germany, France, Australia, Russia, and every country in Latin America are obsessed with getting into American universities. Your beloved Bush’s education department has all the facts on the swelling number of international students.
I do find it hard to believe that you or any of the folks who cobbled together this list actually went to college.
If you knew anything about Marx, you’d know he didn’t have a murderous ideology. He was a historian and an economist. And his theories are the basis for modern economics–even the stuff practiced by conservative economics. He would be appalled by what Stalin, Lenin, and Pol Pot did with his ideas.
As for the rest of the classes in this list, the only thing that you seem capable of criticizing them for is that they focus on, well, stuff that conservatives hate to think about: sex, race, peace, and analysis. Oh, and feminism. As if somehow reading a book by someone who calls herself a feminist turns you into a uneducated person.
I’d love to know what Lilian Kwon’s sources are. I doubt you questioned her utterly bizarre statistics, though. That would involve critique and analysis, which are antithetical to the philosophy of modern American conservatism.
Yes, the list is a joke. On you.
January 12th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
[ADMIN UPDATE: It appears that “ted” is unable and/or unwilling to comply with my simple request to not leave further comments containing ad hominem and insults therefore he received the distinct honor of the being the first, and hopefully only, commentor to be barred from posting. I welcome dissenting opinions. Just not ones full of insult and vitriol as “ted” seems to wont to supply. For anyone happening to read this, please be assured that I do post dissenting opinion and trackbacks, just leave out the nastiness. Thank you.]
I find it very telling that you stooped to ad hominem attacks so early in your comment but after taking the time to read some of your blog entries it becomes apparent that your anger and hatred has become your primary manners of expression. That’s too bad.
Anyway, in regards to you claim that Marx did not have a murderous ideology, I suggest you actually take the time to read not only his written words but also what those who knew him actually said about him. It’s quite enlightening and supports Jason Mattera’s contention. However if you wish to continue that particular point, I suggest you contact Mr. Mattera and take it up with him. Also your claim that Marx’s “theories are the basis for modern economics” are patently absurd and shows a marked ignorance of economic theory on your part. I suggest you take the time to read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations from 1776. I could also give you dozens of names of people who had more influence on modern capitalism and economics. Marxist economics is merely one minor form of economics based on the labor theory of value. So your oversimplification of economic theory and your attempt at placing more importance on Marxist economics than it deserves in terms of modern economics also shows an ignorance on your part as well as a disingenuous attempt to come off as more knowledgeable than you truly are.
You’re obviously are from the liberal camp which claims to be tolerant and compassionate but your words here show you to be neither and merely further exhibits the double-standard and dishonesty by extreme liberals. You’ve chosen to misrepresent conservatives either intentionally or unintentionally which exposes you to be either dishonest or ignorant respectively.
So here’s what I urge you to do; take the time to develop some manners and actually do research on topics upon which you choose to write. In your comments above you quickly lose much credibility and create a very poor first impression when you chose to attack me personally rather than address what was written in the post. Secondly I also urge you to work on improving your reading comprehension. You erroneously attribute some of what was written by the Young America’s Foundation to me even though the source is pretty clearly indicated. Finally you chose to mock Ms. Kwon and claim that you’d love to know what her stats are. Well, here’s a clue for you - why don’t you use the link I provided to her article, put your cursor over her name and click on it. Guess what? Clicking on it will set up your emailer to send an email directly to her. Then you can question her yourself directly. Interesting that such a lowly conservative like myself could figure that out, eh? But your insults and attacks show that you feel conservatives lack such creative thinking.
Ted, I have one piece of advice for you - lighten up. The hatred you exhibit here is consuming you and is not good for your mental well-being. I truly hope you can find some compassion and tolerance that liberals are fond of claiming to possess. I also hope that if you choose to post further on my blog, you will leave the personal attacks and insults out. However, as a clear and strong clarification, if you do attempt to leave comments with personal attacks, they will not be allowed to appear. I have chosen to allow this one for two reasons. First, you didn’t know better and I am patient with newcomers to my blog. And secondly, your post clearly shows much of what is wrong with extreme liberals like yourself in regards to behavior, thought processes, placing emotion over rational thought, etc. Not all liberal thinkers take the poor tactics that you do, but many extremists do. Allowing your post to stand “as is” gives a good example of what is wrong with extreme liberalism. And for that I thank you. I have taken the time to read your online resumè as well as your blog entries and your credentials are impressive. However impressive credentials does not guarantee that your opinions are correct and supportable and in this instance much of your comment is very wrong. Furthermore, you’re clearly falling into the trap many academics tend to set off - that is, becoming arrogant and condencending the more education they receive. Increased education does not always prove to mean an increase in being correct. Sometimes it can result in increased obsfuscation and disingenuity as you so cleverly demonstrated in your comment. This is why many in academia, especially in the university level, do not receive the respect they deserve. Thanks to a small minority yet quite vocal folks like yourself who exhibit behaviors of self-superiority and arrogance, the vast majority of respectable academics are looked upon in a less than favorable light. You really need to keep this in mind in your future writings. In all sincerely I offer you the best of luck in your pursuit of your doctorate but I feel you’ve lost sight of the “common folk” like myself from the high pedestal upon which you stand. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you find my offer of support to be distasteful since it comes from a person who earned a mere bachelor’s in mathematics education with a background in radio and television broadcasting as well as legal editing.