RE: Noone can continue to justify the costs of 4 year degrees in Critical Queer Theory, Marxists Womyn’s Theory, etc.
President Barack Obama went to Occidental College as an undergrad.
Here is one of the courses they teach in that school :
http://listverse.com/2009/09/30/top-10-bizarre-college-courses/
COURSE TITLE: THE PHALLUS
The people at Occidental College decided that in the course of human events it becomes necessary for students to delve into the ‘signification of the phallus’ and the ‘relation of the phallus to masculinity, femininity, genital organs and the fetish’. It being self evident that the phallus occupies a central theme in the psychoanalytic theories of gender and sexuality, the course occupies a pivotal role in the Intercultural and Queer program. All this for a price of about four thousand five hundred dollars.
Here are courses I am sure Obama himself would be proud of from the exclusive SWARTHMORE COLLEGE’s PEACE AND CONFLICT STUDIES.
http://www.swarthmore.edu/cc_peaceconflict.xml
PEAC 042. Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism
Nonviolently confronting those who seek to prevail through intimidation and terror may seem impossible until we analyze carefully the variety of interests underlying the choice of terrorist strategies and draw upon the rich history of nonviolent counter-terrorist tactics in many settings, including within the United States (such as the experience of African Americans). In this course, we will deconstruct “terrorism,” study the dynamics of cultural marginalization, and build on promising nonviolent cases to construct hypotheses and even venture into policy alternatives.
Here’s one from AMHERST COLLEGE’s POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
Course Number POSC 81 1
Course Title Taking Marx Seriously
Department Political Science
Campus Amherst College
Course Description Was offered in Spring 2007 (PT) Should Marx be given yet another chance? Is there anything left to gain by returning to texts whose earnest exegesis has occupied countless interpreters, both friendly and hostile, for generations? Has Marx’s credibility survived the global debacle of those regimes and movements which drew inspiration from his work, however poorly they understood it? Or, conversely, have we entered a new era in which post-Marxism has joined a host of other “post-” phenomena? This seminar will deal with these and related questions in the context of a close and critical reading of Marx’s texts. The main themes we will discuss include Marx’s conception of capitalist modernity, material and intellectual production, power, class conflicts and social consciousness, and his critique of alienation, bourgeois freedom and representative democracy. We will also examine Marx’s theories of historical progress, capitalist exploitation, globalization and human emancipation. This course fulfills the requirement for an advanced seminar in Political Science. Limited to 15 students. Requisite: One of Political Science 28, 29, 49, 65, 68 or an equivalent. Second semester. Professor Machala.