Wednesday, April 06, 2005

what academic 'freedom' would look like

having taught at a university i think i can insert myself into this conversation, as annoying and dumbass as this conversation is. but instead of rehashing the 'you're a leftist brainwasher/no, i'm not - you're a luddite!' arguments, let's get practical.

what would a conservative or, ahem, balanced english course look like?

let's put together a course description and reading list for a general lit course for non-majors - late 19th/early 20th C? feel free to respond with your suggestions, additions.

12 comments:

bitchphd said...

No women writers except maybe Jane Austen.

Doris G. Dixon said...

How about a healthy dose of Thomas Dixon?

Nam LaMore said...

This may seem random (and I love randomness of the universe) ... unless you check here first.

There are many more black superheroes now .. but, none of them reach the regal-quality of Storm .. but you know, Halle Berry wasn't that great playing Storm; better would have been Angela Bassett. I doubt if she would ever play a comic book character; Angela's somewhat of a snob in Tinseltown (so my informants tell me).

You might be interested in this NY Times article.

Anonymous said...

Oh it could be an ALL woman writers curriculum.

First you'll need some novels that mix dull virtue-of-selfishness screeds with excrutiatingly clunky romance-fiction prose for that full balance effect. How about "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" for starters?

Then you'll want to have that sadly out of print lesbian political romance by Lynne Cheney.

-Lee

Delia Christina said...

the lamplighter. ugh. that would be at the top of the list.

and then, for flavor, maybe a novel where a mulatta throws herself off a bridge because of past 'dishonor.'

Delia Christina said...

vic,
took me a while to remember dixon...GOOD one!

yeah, lots of regional/dialect fiction.

jp 吉平 said...

i used to know someone named "dixon."

instead of looking for some 'balanced' lit bib ideal, shouldn't you just name the class "angry liberal reading" or "lit of the self-satisfied consrvative bastards" and call it even?

It's so funny that us Westerners and especially Americans, especially white Americans, are so endeared to the idea of "fair" or "balanced." "Fair" is in itself a bias. "Fair" is in itself an ideological stance.

I reject the notion of "neutral ground" and "impartiality" between two extremes, because I reject that there has to be a two-dimentional, linear contiuum with polar opposits at each end.

Let me put it a different way; I reject that I have to stand on a two-dimentional, liniar contiuum, just because most Americans line themselves up on one.

That said, the pretexts were going to war in Iraq were FALSE, and if you disagree with me, the only way that I'm ever going to read your literature is if it's assigned to me in a class I have to take. Maybe some of your little friends should become literature profs.

Delia Christina said...

dude. jp, chill.
they are lit profs.

and that's the whole point of this. what critics call 'liberal bias' i call good scholarship. if horowitz could put together a 'balanced' lit class it would be a horror - either the most staid and rigid reading lists not seen since 1903 OR just crap.

i agree with you but dude...ease up.

jp 吉平 said...

CLEAN AS A WHISTLE!

Delia Christina said...

this would be the most painful course EVER to teach - especially to a bunch of self righteous 20 yr olds.

Anonymous said...

Treason Ann Coulter
Fiction from the Dark Age

Delia Christina said...

oh, gack.
just imagining this course makes the bile rise.

how about topping it off with a viewing of 'birth of a nation'? ooh, or how about a whole 'balanced' seminar on Gone With the Wind? sweet.