Posted on 01/08/2010 10:20:11 AM PST by bs9021
Academic Wisdom Unboxed
Bethany Stotts, January 8, 2010
As the Chronicle’s blog, Tweed, notes, it is an academic tradition for professors to “try to one-up their colleagues by exchanging unintentionally hilarious sentences from students’ exams and final papers.” (Some of these can be seen here, in the Chronicle forums).
In a similar spirit, I will be providing some of the more striking statements made by professors discussing their papers at the 2009 Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention.
These are from a panel called “Critical Exuberance” and arranged by the MLA Division on Gay Studies in Language and Literature.
President Obama, “centrist Democrat”?
“Not only are Obama’s politics those of a centrist Democrat at best but he is also hemmed in by the politics of his historical accomplishment. As a black man, for example, his commitment to heteronormativity is continually scrutinized, most recently, in the pages of the New York Times Magazine, which chose to focus on the first anniversary of his election on his marriage as the topic of most import. Certainly some of his policy ambivalence on issues of gender and sexuality can be traced to the difficult negotiations he faces as a black man who is always already sexually suspect. Because his racial identity makes him always already so, the one thing this President cannot be, either in his policies or his personal life, is perverse—unlike Bill Clinton who could be personally perverse while politically conservative” (emphasis added)- Janet Jakobsen, Interim Associate Dean of Faculty Diversity at Barnard College.
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(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...
I don’t believe I would contribute constructively in a conversation with a person that would try to use the phrases “heteronormativity introjected”, and “endearingly paired queeer couples”.
Bill Clinton was politically conservative? Yeah, this guy’s got a real firm grip on reality.
Ugh, I left school because of crap like this! Please, tag this with a BARF ALERT!
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