Last Year’s 12 Most Ridiculous College Classes
The Young American Foundation (www.yaf.org) has come out with it's list of "dirty dozen" college courses that the conservative foundation considers "the most bizarre and troubling instances of leftist activism supplanting traditional scholarship."
Personally, I just think these courses are a load of crap. They are created to delight the wacky, obsessed professors who teach them. Seriously, how bored do you have to be to spend money on this bull? Hey, it's cool to have an interest, but geez! Is this the Higher Education you want to pay for? Get yourself a library card people! Go see some indi movies, join a club, or just Google your political and sexual whims. Who needs a four-year degree for this stuff?
1. "The Phallus" — Occidental College. The course covers topics such as phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Latino phallus, "feminist and queer takings-on of the phallus," etc. Tuition at this school costs $32,800 per year.
2. "Queer Musicology" — UCLA. Explores the earth-shaking theory that the music of homosexual composers sounds different to homosexuals that it does to normal people.
3. "Taking Marx Seriously" — Amherst College. First line of the course description: "Should Marx be given another chance?" Marxist regimes have murdered over 100 million of their own citizens and enslaved hundreds of millions more.
4. "Adultery Novel" — University of Pennsylvania. Examines novels and films about adultery through Marxist, Freudian, and feminist lenses.
5. "Blackness" — Occidental College. Covers critical race theory and the idea of "post-blackness." But before you can take it, you have to pass a course on the sinfulness of "whiteness."
6. "Border Crossings, Borderlands: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Immigration" — University of Washington. I knew there must be a reason we don't defend our country from invasion: it would offend feminists. The course also uses race and gender B.S. to chip away at the War on Terror.
7. "Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism" — Mount Holyoke College. What is whiteness? An identity? An ideology? A racialized social system? Why waste time learning job skills when you could be finding out?
8. "Native American Feminisms" — University of Michigan. Examines the relationship between American Indian feminists and the struggle for land. Maybe they can recruit Ward Churchill to teach it.
9. "'Mail Order Brides?' Understanding the Philippines in Southeast Asian Context" — Johns Hopkins University. A history course cross-listed with anthropology, political science, and studies of women, gender, and sexuality.
10. "Cyberfeminism" — Cornell University. An art history course having to do with feminism, post-feminism, and the Internet.
11. "American Dreams/American Realities" — Duke University. Denounces Ronald Reagan's "shining city on a hill" as a myth.
12. "Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism" — Swarthmore College. Rather than offer constructive suggestions on how to deal with the menace of Muslim terrorism, this course "will deconstruct 'terrorism'" and "study the dynamics of cultural marginalization."
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.
Related Articles and Blog threads:
I Got an A in Phallus 101 -Los Angeles Times
Academia's Dirty Dozen -Moonbattery
The Dirty Dozen
America’s Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses
By Jason Mattera
Jason Mattera Speaks on Utube.com
January 13, 2007
Posted in: Waste-of-time classes
6 Responses
#35 Riding on the High Horse of College Modules « Absolut College Girl - August 28, 2008
[...] What would you consider as courses that don’t matter? If you find that learning the intricacies of Cyberfeminism (Cornell University), Getting Dressed (Princeton), Queer Musicology (UCLA) and Taking Marx Seriously (Amherst College) is important, good luck to you. Everyone has their own different standards of evaluating what’s good for them, and call me old-fashioned, but I shall stick to what is considered more conservatively and academically inclined. [...]
Gimme a break! Sure the names of these classes are ridiculous, but your commentary belies a deep knee-jerk animosity toward thinkers (Marx, Freud, etc.) with whom you are pretty obviously unfamiliar. Have you read Das Capital?? I doubt it. These theorists have, for better or worse, influenced the modern world (ergo your world) in powerful, far-reaching ways that you would do well to examine. In the process, you might find that you actually agree (!) with some of what they say. Marx, for example, had some very resonant and moving ideas concerning the basic rights of all human beings, the value of community, and the injustice of profit-driven wars. Beware the fallacy of associating any philosopher with the actions of his/her most radical followers! Sounds to me like you could use a good, well-rounded introduction to critical thought in world history to expand your horizons a bit. Don’t know where you’d find something like that, though. Maybe… college?
“Animosity” toward thinkers, you say. Hmmm. That’s not true at all. You’re right however, that I’ve never read Das Capital. (And they let me graduate with a liberal arts degree without reading that?!) If we are going on your idea that it takes a four-year college education to be well versed in critical theory and history, then that just proves that college was indeed a waste of my money.
I didn’t learn about Marx until after college.
I did read Voltaire’s Candide in college – French class. What a witty guy. His satirical view points on society would expand many people’s horizons. But I disagree that college is the ONLY place to get exposed to these philosophers.
Liberal arts enthusiasts get so bent when someone disagrees with their elitist academic curriculum. I have learned to think on my own and form my own opinions -and it wasn’t because I spent 130 credit hours in college. (Eat your heart out Voltaire!)
College doesn’t hurt. But I still say, it does not take a college degree to expand one’s horizons. Anyone can buy a book or Google the likes of Marx or Nietzsche to name drop, quote and flaunt their academic hauteur.
No wonder you think college is for suckers.
You’re a basic anti-intellectual.
College was not designed for job training. That’s where the suckering really comes in. Too many schools sold themselves to too many ignorant people that way.
You should have read Marx in college at some point. And it’s shameful not one of your professors assigned it.
How can you call me anti-intellectual? I wrote a book that questions and criticizes “the institution”. I think that makes me a free thinker if anything else.
You are absolutely right about College not being designed for job training. Yet a recent survey by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education shows that more than eight out of ten Americans say that having a college degree is important to getting ahead in a job or career. (That’s a lot of ignorant people -according to you.)
Karl Marx? please, can you be more original? I was exposed to Voltaire and Candide in college but didn’t learn to appreciate them (along with Karl Marx) until after I graduated. I certainly don’t need an uppity mean prof to bully me into their version of intellect.
Liberal Students Throw Tantrum : Conservative Compendium - March 5, 2010
[...] Maybe students should target their ire at universities which waste money on silly moonbat courses. [...]
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