Queer Studies minor
Posted on 03/07/2006 9:53:55 AM PST by presidio9
Students at DePaul University in Chicago, the largest Catholic university in the United States, can minor in Queer Studies through their College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as of this year. While DePaul has set an example for other Catholic institutions, administration and students say this minor probably won't appear at Marquette.
"The minor is in response to student demand and also because of an increase in academic demand from faculty to teach the subject," said Gary Cestaro, assistant professor of modern languages at DePaul. He is the program director of the new minor and was part of the six-person faculty group that spearheaded the minor's creation.
Cestaro said that Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual, Queer (LGTBQ) Studies is a grounded interdisciplinary academic field that emerged in the 1980s. DePaul has been increasingly offering individual LGTBQ courses for the last 10 years, Cestaro said.
He said this is the first year the minor is established. The only new addition is the minor's mandatory introductory course, offered for the first time this quarter, which ends next week.
Barbara Speicher, chairwoman of DePaul's communications department, said the Queer Studies minor has received a generally positive reaction. Not everyone at DePaul approves of the Queer Studies minor, however.
"It has certainly faced some disagreement, as one would expect," Speicher said. "But it hasn't been anything too awful."
Speicher said DePaul has always been open to new minors.
"We are viewing it as it is, an academic course. The university has always been open to new innovations, not putting up blocks."
Critics and supporters alike wonder what this means for other Catholic universities, such as Marquette.
Director of University Communication Brigid O'Brien Miller said she is not aware of any proposal for a Queer Studies minor at Marquette.
Heather Hathaway, associate dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, said she does not see a Queer Studies minor in Marquette's future.
"It is unlikely that Arts & Sciences would develop a major or minor in the field, but not because we see it as necessarily contradicting the message of a Catholic university," she said.
Money, not message, restricts this minor, according to Hathaway.
"We simply lack the financial resources, or the money required to hire faculty experts in the field, that would be necessary to create a cohesive and substantive major or minor," she said.
Hathaway said that because a Queer Studies field focuses on subjects such as literature and art produced by gay men and lesbian women, gay and lesbian history and the social constructions of gender, it is too broad to attempt at Marquette.
"Ignorance breeds injustice," said Jess Cushion, a junior in the College of Communication and president of Marquette's Gay/Straight Alliance. "I applaud DePaul for taking the step to fuel acceptance of the lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual community by educating people about discrimination and hate that homosexuals endure on a daily basis."
Cushion said that LGTB issues are often ignored at Marquette.
"I feel like the administration goes out of its way to come up with excuses for excluding (LGTB) issues. It's always 'We don't have the budget,' or 'It's not the right time,' when in reality it's 'This is Marquette, and if you're gay, we're going to silence you as best we can,'" she said.
Cushion said she would like to see a Queer Studies minor at Marquette.
"There might not be a demand for such a minor here, but it would be extremely beneficial," she said. "We have minors surrounding the studies of other racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. What makes (LGTB) issues any different?"
Wheeeee! Nuther un-church lurches forward.
Let's see... just to throw a number out there, maybe 15% of priests have homosexual inclinations with only maybe 4% having an active gay lifestyle. However, you see it fit to make a broad statement that queer studies would be good preparation for the priesthood.
I would say that 90% of the people that attack the Catholic Church are liberals. It makes sense: they hate the institution's conservative stance and look for any way to discredit it.
So you say, based on 4%, that priests are gay. I say, based on 90% that you're a liberal scumbag. Who's more likely to be right?
This is a fairly old story, is it not? I could have sworn I saw this posted about three weeks ago.
Oh well, DePaul goes down for academic diversity I see.
How about "Heterosexual Studies" for a major? Now THAT would be radical!
What do you think has been going on? We're practically to the point now where anyone -- priest or not, male or female, married or not -- has to have a criminal background check to have anything to do with kids in a Catholic setting, and we are at the point where certain lawyers are openly trolling for men who will accuse priests of fondling them. (Whether the accusation is true or not is beside the point. The money is there. My diocese recently settled for an unknown amount with victims who were abused by a man after he had been expelled from the priesthood!! If you can figure out where the justice is in that, please let me know. It was evidently cheaper to settle than to keep paying lawyers to fight it.)
Meanwhile, there's this for you to chew on. Notice the poster's comments on the number of public school sexual molestation cases versus cases involving the Catholic clergy.
Not to be rude, BUT.....is there any other kind?
Impractical fields of study are what minors are there for. I majored in economics, and one of my minors was in studio art.
Are you a Catholic? If so, what are you doing to clean up your Church?
Here's what I don't understand.
It's perfectly legitimate to offer courses in human sexuality (coded for Hum Bio, Psych and Anthro), perhaps including upper-level coursework focusing on same-sex attractions; in how societies "deal with" gay sexual orientation (Sociology, Anthro, History); etc.
So what I fail to understand is why a specific "Queer Studies" realm is needed. Someone wishing to focus on that -- perhaps for solid reasons, perhaps for silly ones -- can petition for an Individually Designed Major and pick accordingly.
The answer is: The very creation of the "department" (or the availability of Queer Studies as a "standard" minor), is a sop to the forces of PC on campus.
Queer Studies minor
You are not well informed. The Church has started to do something about the problem, starting with the Pope's edicts blocking gays from entering the seminaries. The problem was that the US Catholic Church thought that gays were capable of being as celibate as straights, so that "orientation" didn't matter. Okay, now we know for certain that orientation does in fact matter. And have done something about it.
Jumping in between two good Freepers, let me answer for WyattEarp that there is nothing that we are being allowed to do. The same folks (or the next complicit generation) are still in charge and the laity is being told everything has been taken care of.
There is no role the clergy will allow the laity to play in reforming the perverted nature of the modern Catholic Church.
Very said but true.
The one organization the media has focused on as opposition is an umnbrella organization comprised of some groups opposed to Catholic theology.
ain case you haven't seen this one.
Time to roto-root Catholic Univserities.
Obviously you are not referring to either the Catholic League or Opus Dei.
"Thank you for perpetuating the myth that Catholic priests are perverted child molesters."
There sure have been numerous investigations, arrests, convictions and young men's lives ruined over that "myth".
Stop deluding yourself and lighten up, it was a joke.
No Voices of the Faithful. The ones you mentioned have no input either.
Yes....And medical research money for normal people is re-directed from heart-cancer-and childhod diseases to keep these people alive for as long as possible.
The knee-kerk response that someone who is gay is a priest is analgous to saying someone is cheap because he is a Jew, an alchoholic because he is Irish, in the Mafia because he is Italian, lazy because he is Mexican, stupid becuase he is Polish, or a criminal because he is black. As an attempt at humor, it is also less original.
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