College Life

When we were in school, we took courses with titles like "Accounting," "Microeconomic Theory," "Theory of the Firm," and "Production Management." In law school there were edgy subjects like "Contracts," and "Negotiable Instruments." But then we attended state schools, where the principal attraction was the price, and our primary purpose was to acquire some knowledge, skill, or credential that might be translated into rent money.

If money is no object, and neither knowledge nor skills your goal, there are today other choices.

Occidental College, for example, is a small, private, liberal arts school located in darkest Los Angeles. And it has something called a "Department of Critical Theory and Social Justice," which is offering some pretty interesting courses. First there's CTSJ 342:

342. THE PHALLUS.

A survey of theories of the phallus from Freud and Lacan through 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. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Queer Studies.

If you're not sure that you're ready to find out just what a "lesbian phallus" might be, or how to work "phallologocentrism" into your small talk, you may want to opt for Critical Theory and Social Justice 286:

286. WHITENESS.

This course seeks to engage the emergent body of scholarship designated to deconstruct whiteness. It 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. Particular attention will be paid to the role of religion and psychology in the construction of whiteness. Texts will include Race Traitor, Critical White Studies, The Invention of the White Race, The Abolition of Whiteness, White Trash, and Even the Rat was White. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Theory.

Do you suppose they mean "designed" to deconstruct whiteness? Or do they refer to some professor who doesn't have to play defense? While we're all for "enabling conditions," we're a tad fuzzy on what "the construction of whiteness" would entail. Personally, I was born; but perhaps others were assembled from pale items acquired via mail-order.

More to our taste is CTSJ 180:

180. STUPIDITY.

Stupidity is neither ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a corollary of knowing and an element of normalcy, the double of intelligence rather than its opposite. It is an artifact of our nature as finite beings and one of the most powerful determinants of human destiny. Stupidity is always the name of the Other, and it is the sign of the feminine. This course in Critical Psychology follows the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, and most recently, Avital Ronell, in a philosophical examination of those operations and technologies that we conduct in order to render ourselves uncomprehending. Stupidity, which has been evicted from the philosophical premises and dumbed down by psychometric psychology, has returned in the postmodern discourse against Nation, Self, and Truth and makes itself felt in political life ranging from the presidency to Beevis and Butthead. This course examines stupidity.

We're not making this up. The catalog entries are HERE, HERE and HERE.

H/T to the Young America's Foundation's "The Dirty Dozen: America’s Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses."

And, we can't help but point out, the deconstructionist critical thinkers at Occidental have misspelled "Beavis and Butt-Head."

p.s. No -- we have no idea what "organicity" might actually be, let alone what these folks think they mean. And, yes -- we also know that "normalcy" isn't actually a word (they mean "normality"), although Mr. Harding thought that it was.