Yes, they're real

[Beep Beep!]

Since the 1960s, the Young America's Foundation has decried what it considers leftist radicalism on college campuses. Last month, it released this academic year's "Dirty Dozen" — college courses it found to be "the most bizarre and troubling instances of leftist activism supplanting traditional scholarship."

1. The Phallus

Occidental College. A seminar in critical theory and social justice, this class examines Sigmund Freud, phallologocentrism and the lesbian phallus.

2. Queer Musicology

UCLA. This course welcomes students from all disciplines to study what it calls an "unruly discourse" on the subject, understood through the works of Cole Porter, Pussy Tourette and John Cage.

3. Taking Marx Seriously

Amherst College. This advanced seminar for 15 students examines whether Karl Marx still matters despite the countless interpretations and applications of his ideas, or whether the world has entered a post-Marxist era.

4. Adultery Novel

University of Pennsylvania. Falling in the newly named "gender, culture and society" major, this course examines novels and films of adultery such as "Madame Bovary" and "The Graduate" through Marxist, Freudian and feminist lenses.

5. Blackness

Occidental College. Critical race theory and the idea of "post-blackness" are among the topics covered in this seminar course examining racial identity. A course on whiteness is a prerequisite.

6. Border Crossings, Borderlands: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Immigration

University of Washington. This women studies department offering takes a new look at recent immigration debates in the U.S., integrating questions of race and gender while also looking at the role of the war on terror.

7. Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism

Mount Holyoke College. The educational studies department offers this first-year, writing-intensive seminar asking whether whiteness is "an identity, an ideology, a racialized social system," and how it relates to racism.

8. Native American Feminisms

University of Michigan. The women's studies and American culture departments offer this course on contemporary Native American feminism, including its development and its relation to struggles for land.

9. "Mail Order Brides?" Understanding the Philippines in Southeast Asian Context

Johns Hopkins University. This history course — cross-listed with anthropology, political science and studies of women, gender and sexuality — is limited to 35 students and asks for an anthropology course as a prerequisite.

10. Cyberfeminism

Cornell University. Cornell's art history department offers this seminar looking at art produced under the influence of feminism, post-feminism and the Internet.

11. American Dreams/American Realities

Duke University. Part of Duke's Hart Leadership Program that prepares students for public service, this history course looks at American myths, from "city on the hill" to "foreign devil," in shaping American history.

12. Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism

Swarthmore College. Swarthmore's "peace and conflict studies" program offers this course that "will deconstruct 'terrorism' " and "study the dynamics of cultural marginalization" while seeking alternatives to violence.

[Taxman]

Nice to see Los Angeles locking up the top two spots on this. :rock:

[changingshades]

and they're magnificent?

[pornbot2.5]

Not any stranger than the "geography of wine" class I took in college.

[Beep Beep!]

From the LA Times today:

I got an A in Phallus 101

The list of the 12 most bizarre college courses in the U.S. includes offerings such as 'The Phallus' and 'Queer Musicology.'

By Charlotte Allen
Charlotte Allen is an editor at Beliefnet and the author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus."

January 7, 2007

THE "DIRTY DOZEN" list of "America's Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses" is out — and Los Angeles-area institutions of higher learning have walked away with one-fourth of the ranked honors (or dishonors). Occidental College, an 1,800-student liberal arts school in Eagle Rock, is the only college on the list to collect not one but two citations for excellence at offering trendy theories of gender, skin color and white-male oppression at the expense of actual academic content.

UCLA didn't fare badly either, with one citation. And believe me, the competition was stiff. The Southern California colleges were competing against such nationally recognized PC heavyweights as Cornell, Amherst, the University of Michigan and, of course, Duke.

The list comes from the Young America's Foundation, a 40-year-old nonprofit funded by conservative individuals and foundations. Its No. 1 slot this year for bizarre class offerings went to Occidental, for a course called "The Phallus."

No, it's not a biology course. It's a survey, offered by Oxy's department of critical theory and social justice, of "feminist and queer takings-on of the phallus." Topics include "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."

You might wonder how a lesbian can have a phallus, or whether it's possible to say "phallologocentrism" three times without tripping on your tongue, but if so, it's likely that you won't be getting an "A" from Occidental professor Jeffrey Tobin, who is teaching the course this spring semester. Also this semester, Occidental will offer the course that the Young America's Foundation rated No. 5 in bizarreness: "Blackness." This class will explore "new blackness," "critical blackness," "post-blackness," "unforgivable blackness" and "queer blackness."

A perfect companion course to Oxy's "Blackness" would be "Whiteness," which is offered at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and was ranked No. 7 by the foundation. But not to worry. Occidental has its own "Whiteness" course (which will "examine the construction of whiteness in the historic, legal and economic contexts which have allowed it to function as an enabling condition for privilege and race-based prejudice," says the Oxy online catalog). Passing "Whiteness" is a prerequisite for signing up for "Blackness."

Annual tuition at Occidental, a private college, is $32,800. That means if you take "The Phallus" and "Blackness" (plus its prerequisite "Whiteness") this year on a four-course-per-semester schedule, you will have set your parents back $12,300.

UCLA won the coveted No. 2 slot on the list, with "Queer Musicology." Queer musicology is a new field dating from the 1990s based in part on the idea that if you're gay, then music by gay composers such as Benjamin Britten will sound different to you than it would if you were straight. Nipping at UCLA's heels was Amherst, with "Taking Marx Seriously." The first sentence of the course description is: "Should Marx be given another chance?" With 100 million dead in various gulags and related charnel houses, I don't think so.

At Michigan, "Native American Feminisms" (No. 8) hunts for the Iroquois Betty Friedan.

At Cornell, "Cyberfeminism" (No. 10) explores someone's discovery that — surprise, surprise — women use computers!

At Duke, you can take "American Dreams/American Realities" (No. 11), a history course on American myths such as "a city on a hill."

So much for Ronald Reagan.

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.

Why not take a course in "The Phallus"?

You can get the same credit for it as for a course in Greek tragedy.

[artimoff]

A fool & his (parents) money are soon parted.

[Ray G.]

A lot of those are silly, but really, aside from 6 & 12, I don't find any of them to be too disturbing. I'm much more worried about the disturbing trend of hiring radicals to teach college students to hate America and Israel.

[bpepple]

I'm much more worried about the disturbing trend of hiring radicals to teach college students to hate America and Israel.
Which College is teaching students to hate America & Isreal? Who are some of these 'radicals' you see being hired? Or are you once again pulling shit out of your ass?

[Movie Maker]

5. Blackness

Occidental College. Critical race theory and the idea of "post-blackness" are among the topics covered in this seminar course examining racial identity. A course on whiteness is a prerequisite.

that can't be real. i refuse to believe that's real.

[The Roman Candle]

I like how a class on feminist art is classified as "leftist radicalism."

[Ben Weldon]

A lot of those are silly, but really, aside from 6 & 12, I don't find any of them to be too disturbing.

What do you find disturbing about them?

[The Roman Candle]

What do you find disturbing about them?

12 has the words "peaceful" and "terrorism" in the same sentence. As for 6... fuck if I know.

[Cuckoo]

A lot of those are silly, but really, aside from 6 & 12, I don't find any of them to be too disturbing. I'm much more worried about the disturbing trend of hiring radicals to teach college students to hate America and Israel.

Yeah, they're all crap courses but not too disturbing. Just usual leftist classes as far as I can tell. A thinly veiled class in communism. Also they need to get the professors who are teaching the students how 'bad' America and Israel are out of the freaking school.

[DAVE]

8. Native American Feminisms

University of Michigan. The women's studies and American culture departments offer this course on contemporary Native American feminism, including its development and its relation to struggles for land.


Haha I actually know a girl who took this class. She said it was a joke class, easy A. Even if you didn't show up.

[stevapalooza]

I got a C in "Advanced being ashamed of your penis." I would've gotten an A but it was just too hard being ashamed of the magnificent bastard.

[xyzzy]

None of these seem that bad. I think if we put together a list of crazy ass classes that they teach at places like Bob Jones University it would be much worse.

[Jamie Howdeshell]

I'm much more worried about the disturbing trend of hiring radicals to teach college students to hate America and Israel.

"trend"?

got anything to back this up with?

[Ray G.]

"trend"?

got anything to back this up with?

We've discussed this in the past, Jamie. I gave you a laundry list of horrid professors who would not be out of place in an Al Qaeda training camp. Holocaust deniers, anti-semites, 9/11 deniers, thugs who wish death on the US military.

You refused to acknowledge it as a trend.

[xyzzy]

We've discussed this in the past, Jamie. I gave you a laundry list of horrid professors who would not be out of place in an Al Qaeda training camp. Holocaust deniers, anti-semites, 9/11 deniers, thugs who wish death on the US military.

You refused to acknowledge it as a trend.

To be fair, to show a trend, you'd have to show that the relative percentage of these kinds of professors has increased, not just that they exist.

[Ray G.]

What do you find disturbing about them?

Well, 6 just seems like the ultimate in leftist claptrap. "Feminist perspectives on illegal immigration"? They're in their country. They want in our country. There's your perspective.

As for 12, that's the kind of class that's slowly killing America. We're teaching our young people that war is inherently evil, and it's wrong to strike back against our enemies. We're teaching them not to put self-preservation and defense of country above all else. That's going to kill us eventually.

[Ray G.]

To be fair, to show a trend, you'd have to show that the relative percentage of these kinds of professors has increased, not just that they exist.

You're a real bitch to argue with, you know that. :razz:

But just the sheer presence, and the fact that they don't get fired when they make comments like "million Mogadishus"(Nicholas DeGenova), "How many Palestinians have you killed"(Joseph Massad), or "Elie Wiesel is the captain of the Holocaust industry"(Norman Finkelstein) is far more disturbing than any of those silly classes.

[xyzzy]

You're a real bitch to argue with, you know that. :razz:

But just the sheer presence, and the fact that they don't get fired when they make comments like "million Mogadishus"(Nicholas DeGenova), "How many Palestinians have you killed"(Joseph Massad), or "Elie Wiesel is the captain of the Holocaust industry"(Norman Finkelstein) is far more disturbing than any of those silly classes.

I don't doubt that these comments are outrageous, but I can't really tell without context.

[Drew]

This thread is useless without pictures?

[mayhemspider]

Well, 6 just seems like the ultimate in leftist claptrap. "Feminist perspectives on illegal immigration"? They're in their country. They want in our country. There's your perspective.

As for 12, that's the kind of class that's slowly killing America. We're teaching our young people that war is inherently evil, and it's wrong to strike back against our enemies. We're teaching them not to put self-preservation and defense of country above all else. That's going to kill us eventually.

how is this bad exactly?

[RegularJoe]

if people blindly adhere to whatever it is there professors say, liberal or conservative, then they were pretty dumb to begin with.

i actively argued with professors on EVERYTHING. i had a US History teacher that attempted to portray the US as a mustache twirling villain from the very inception of the country. i argued with her, hard, the whole semester. my papers were things that i could tell by her comments actively pissed her off. many of my classmates hated me 'cause i just wouldn't let up.

same with my very feminist english professors and ethics professors. everything was an argument/exchange of ideas.

any ground they earned in my brain in terms of morality and my belief structure was earned.

the fact that instructors teach things that piss off students isn't bad. it's when students bend over, spread 'em and take whatever they're given that problems ensue.

[Ray G.]

how is this bad exactly?

How is it not? We're raising a generation of young people who won't be ready to face a great fight for the future of our nation, if it comes!

[DAVE]

How is it not? We're raising a generation of young people who won't be ready to face a great fight for the future of our nation, if it comes!

How ready are you for this great fight of the future?

[xyzzy]

How is it not? We're raising a generation of young people who won't be ready to face a great fight for the future of our nation, if it comes!

With all due respect, that's crazy talk.

[Ben Weldon]

Well, 6 just seems like the ultimate in leftist claptrap. "Feminist perspectives on illegal immigration"? They're in their country. They want in our country. There's your perspective.

As for 12, that's the kind of class that's slowly killing America. We're teaching our young people that war is inherently evil, and it's wrong to strike back against our enemies. We're teaching them not to put self-preservation and defense of country above all else. That's going to kill us eventually.

Sorry Ray, while we disagree on a lot of stuff I've always considered you to be a resanable guy but views like that are just plane scary. War IS inherently evil. If I believe anything I believe that. It can be a necessary evil no doubt, but a evil none the less. The idea that a piece of dirt and a flag is more valuable than even one human life, that my friend is what gets people killed.

As for Feminist perspectives on illegal immigration,well...they have them. It seems pretty straight forward to me that women have their own perspective on iillegal mmigration and the reasons for it.I think it's a valid topic.

[Ben Weldon]

How is it not? We're raising a generation of young people who won't be ready to face a great fight for the future of our nation, if it comes!

look at it another way. We're raising a generation of young people who will want to look for nonviolent solutions first.

[Taxman]

With all due respect, that's crazy talk.Yes, freedom of speech was put into the Constitution for a reason. Being willing to fight is one thing, but being able to think critically about issues is another thing entirely. You can call a position invalid all you want, but if it is held by others, in great numbers, and especially those willing to die in its defense, it is of create value to study and understand it.

[Jamie Howdeshell]

We've discussed this in the past, Jamie. I gave you a laundry list of horrid professors who would not be out of place in an Al Qaeda training camp. Holocaust deniers, anti-semites, 9/11 deniers, thugs who wish death on the US military.

You refused to acknowledge it as a trend.


how many were on the "laundry list"?

4 or 5 nutcase professors is not a trend. your word choice is alarmist to say the least.

[Ray G.]

Sorry Ray, while we disagree on a lot of stuff I've always considered you to be a resanable guy but views like that are just plane scary. War IS inherently evil. If I believe anything I believe that. It can be a necessary evil no doubt, but a evil none the less. The idea that a piece of dirt and a flag is more valuable than even one human life, that my friend is what gets people killed.

As for Feminist perspectives on illegal immigration,well...they have them. It seems pretty straight forward to me that women have their own perspective on iillegal mmigration and the reasons for it.I think it's a valid topic.

War in self-defense is not inherently evil. Self-preservation is a critical part of the human instinct, and I believe that these courses, and a lot of the extreme anti-war movement in general, fail to make that distinction.

[Ray G.]

Yes, freedom of speech was put into the Constitution for a reason. Being willing to fight is one thing, but being able to think critically about issues is another thing entirely. You can call a position invalid all you want, but if it is held by others, in great numbers, and especially those willing to die in its defense, it is of create value to study and understand it.

I have no problem with these courses being allowed. Let's just get that out of the way. They can teach whatever they want. Hell, I'm sure Bob Jones teaches some classes I'd consider anti-Semitic, but that's they're right. I just think the perspective they're espousing is, frankly, insane and self-destructive.

[Ben Weldon]

War in self-defense is not inherently evil. Self-preservation is a critical part of the human instinct, and I believe that these courses, and a lot of the extreme anti-war movement in general, fail to make that distinction.

I agree that self-preservation is a critical part of who we are but I dont think that is the same as exsepting war as just "somthing we do". War is the failure of humans to be humane. It's us at our lowest, when we are the farthest from the divine. It's definitely part of who we are but I dont know if it's part of who we are as humans.

[xyzzy]

War in self-defense is not inherently evil. Self-preservation is a critical part of the human instinct, and I believe that these courses, and a lot of the extreme anti-war movement in general, fail to make that distinction.

What if there was a non-violent alternative that gave better results? Wouldn't, then, the war based option be at least a bit evil, even if in self defense?

[Ray G.]

What if there was a non-violent alternative that gave better results? Wouldn't, then, the war based option be at least a bit evil, even if in self defense?

Is there really a true nonviolent option to being attacked by an enemy that plans to kill you, though?

[Ben Weldon]

Is there really a true nonviolent option to being attacked by an enemy that plans to kill you, though?

Isn't it worth finding out?

[Ray G.]

Isn't it worth finding out?

Maybe, but the blurb for the course puts "terrorism" in quotation marks and talks about "cultural marginalization", which seems to imply that this is just another class trying to rationalize terrorism and try to get us to be more "tolerant" towards our attackers.

[xyzzy]

Is there really a true nonviolent option to being attacked by an enemy that plans to kill you, though?

I don't know. Maybe we should study that. In like a class or something. It can never hurt to be aware of your options.

[Ben Weldon]

Maybe, but the blurb for the course puts "terrorism" in quotation marks and talks about "cultural marginalization", which seems to imply that this is just another class trying to rationalize terrorism and try to get us to be more "tolerant" towards our attackers.

Dont you think cultural marginalization plays a part in the creation of terrorism? I mean there has to be more to it than "they're the bad guys". That's a distinction that a lot of the extreme pro-war movement in general, fail to make.

[The Cheap-Arse Film Critic]

Tolerance is bad.

[The Cheap-Arse Film Critic]

Wow, I've become a Thread Killer.

[Ray G.]

Dont you think cultural marginalization plays a part in the creation of terrorism? I mean there has to be more to it than "they're the bad guys". That's a distinction that a lot of the extreme pro-war movement in general, fail to make.

I think there's a growing desire to overthink our enemies' motivations. I just worry about us paralyzing ourselves when faced with conflict, because our social conscience got too big and overwhelmed everything else. There has to be a healthy balance between the virulent hatred for the enemy and anyone who looks like them that we saw in past generations, and this.

[Ray G.]

Tolerance is bad.

Very few things are great in excess.

[The Cheap-Arse Film Critic]

Thinking is also bad.

[Matt O'Keefe]

When I saw the title, I thought you'd be showing us a pic of your breast :)

[Taxman]

What if there was a non-violent alternative that gave better results? Wouldn't, then, the war based option be at least a bit evil, even if in self defense?Well, not for the defense contractors anyway.

[The Cheap-Arse Film Critic]

Very few things are great in excess.

I can't believe you just implied tolerance is a bad thing...

[Ray G.]

I can't believe you just implied tolerance is a bad thing...

Tolerance, like everything else, loses its use when used exclusively. There are no absolutes, and relying on one thing at all times will always end badly. You may be able to talk some enemies out of killing you and make them hate you less, but eventually you're going to be faced with one you can't, and if you're not prepared, you're up shit creek.

[The Cheap-Arse Film Critic]

Tolerance, like everything else, loses its use when used exclusively. There are no absolutes, and relying on one thing at all times will always end badly. You may be able to talk some enemies out of killing you and make them hate you less, but eventually you're going to be faced with one you can't, and if you're not prepared, you're up shit creek.

So the best thing to do is not try at all?

[Ray G.]

So the best thing to do is not try at all?

No, but it helps not to get carried away. And it looks to me like that's what acadamia is doing - getting carried away with the principles of non-violence and tolerance for ones enemies that they fail to realize that just like the other side, it's not effective 100% of the time.

[The Cheap-Arse Film Critic]

No, but it helps not to get carried away. And it looks to me like that's what acadamia is doing - getting carried away with the principles of non-violence and tolerance for ones enemies that they fail to realize that just like the other side, it's not effective 100% of the time.

But your point is rendered moot, because you seem to be of the opinion that violence is the better way of doing things than the other way being suggested, which makes you as unbalanced as those you are critisising.

[Ben Weldon]

I think there's a growing desire to overthink our enemies' motivations. I just worry about us paralyzing ourselves when faced with conflict, because our social conscience got too big and overwhelmed everything else. There has to be a healthy balance between the virulent hatred for the enemy and anyone who looks like them that we saw in past generations, and this.

The thing is it's not like that virulent hatred isn't around today. We've made progress,absolutely, but that progress was met with the same idea that we are moving to fast towards being impadent.

Like you said,Self-preservation is a critical part of the human instinct.I dont think empathy is ever going to cancel it out.

[Cuckoo]

I agree with Ray a 1000% here.

[Taxman]

It is much easier to take the absolute black and white positions, at least politically. It allows you to paint those that oppose you as flawed, or weak. It also makes it easier to define success or progress. In this case a dead terrorist is progress. During Vietnam I believe that a dead communist was presented as progress, body counts were released daily and presented by the news outlets as progress, but was it really? The end results may say otherwise.

A dead terrorist or insurgent may be progress, but might it not be. What if for each dead terrorist there are two, or ten to take his place? In that case killing terrorists may not be enough. It may be necessary to identify the conditions and ideas that lead to more terrorists and try to find a way to limit or eliminate their effects. If we are not willing to even ask whether there are such conditions and ideas out there, then the battle may be lost already.

[Jamie Howdeshell]

It is much easier to take the absolute black and white positions, at least politically. It allows you to paint those that oppose you as flawed, or weak. It also makes it easier to define success or progress. In this case a dead terrorist is progress. During Vietnam I believe that a dead communist was presented as progress, body counts were released daily and presented by the news outlets as progress, but was it really? The end results may say otherwise.

A dead terrorist or insurgent may be progress, but might it not be. What if for each dead terrorist there are two, or ten to take his place? In that case killing terrorists may not be enough. It may be necessary to identify the conditions and ideas that lead to more terrorists and try to find a way to limit or eliminate their effects. If we are not willing to even ask whether there are such conditions and ideas out there, then the battle may be lost already.

quit hating america with your nuanced complex thinking!

:mad:

[moonspider]

DARKNESSSS

[Beep Beep!]

When I saw the title, I thought you'd be showing us a pic of your breast :)
Nope, no boobies here!

I never thought this thread would get this far . . . I love it.