Summer reading list with gay theme stokes controversy at elite university

Fox News ^ | 8/25/15 | none listed

[Faith Presses On]

A gay and lesbian-themed graphic novel on an elite university reading list for some incoming college freshmen is generating pushback among Christian students who feel the material is “pornographic.”

“Fun Home,” a best-selling story that features a girl coming out as a lesbian and discovering her father was gay, is among several books selected by Duke University “to give incoming students a shared intellectual experience with other members of their class.”

Instead, the racy reading material -- which is recommended, but not required -- seems to have stirred up controversy.

[Faith Presses On]

Liberal hypocrisy:

“It has the potential to start many arguments and conversations, which, in my opinion, is an integral component of a liberal arts education,” Ibanca Anand, a student member of the selection committee, told The Chronicle in April.

And from Google, the names of some more articles on the controversy. Some names are cut off, but you still get a sense of how liberal media are regarding this:

Duke's Fun Home controversy, explained Vox-Aug 26, 2015 This year's choice was Fun Home, an acclaimed 2006 graphic memoir by ... And it kicked off a national controversy that touches on campus ... Students Denounce 'Fun Home' — Why Is No One Calling Them ... Flavorwire-Aug 26, 2015 Essay on the experience of teaching 'Fun Home,' and why the ... Inside Higher Ed-Aug 28, 2015 No, Duke Freshmen. Boycotting Fun Home Is Not a Push for ... The Mary Sue-Aug 27, 2015 Duke Students' Objections to Reading 'Fun Home' Aren't About ... RH Reality Check-Aug 27, 2015 At university, you explore new ideas or you become a jerk Opinion-Toronto Star-Aug 27, 2015

Listen Up, Duke Freshmen: Fun Home Is Not Porn Daily Beast-Aug 24, 2015 Fun Home has since gone on to become a much-praised, Tony ... The Fun Home row is the latest in a series of controversies to hit Duke in ... Duke University responds to summer reading controversy WTVD-TV-Aug 24, 2015 The Duke Freshmen Refusing to Read Fun Home Are Reliving the ... Slate Magazine (blog)-Aug 25, 2015 Duke students reject award-winning book over gay themes Highly Cited-CNN-Aug 24, 2015 Call It the 'Bechdel-Wallace Test' In-Depth-The Atlantic-Aug 25, 2015 Fugitive and cloistered virtues Blog-Baltimore Sun (blog)-Aug 25, 2015

Duke is also infamous for:

Traveling Sex Show at Duke Draws Criticism http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=4257419

[sparklite2]

I don’t think Duke and “elite” belong in the same sentence.

[Faith Presses On]

Duke’s Fun Home controversy, explained Vox-Aug 26, 2015

This year’s choice was Fun Home, an acclaimed 2006 graphic memoir by ... And it kicked off a national controversy that touches on campus ...

Students Denounce ‘Fun Home’ — Why Is No One Calling Them ... Flavorwire-Aug 26, 2015

Essay on the experience of teaching ‘Fun Home,’ and why the ... Inside Higher Ed-Aug 28, 2015

No, Duke Freshmen. Boycotting Fun Home Is Not a Push for ... The Mary Sue-Aug 27, 2015

Duke Students’ Objections to Reading ‘Fun Home’ Aren’t About ... RH Reality Check-Aug 27, 2015

At university, you explore new ideas or you become a jerk Opinion-Toronto Star-Aug 27, 2015

Listen Up, Duke Freshmen: Fun Home Is Not Porn Daily Beast-Aug 24, 2015

Fun Home has since gone on to become a much-praised, Tony ...

The Fun Home row is the latest in a series of controversies to hit Duke in ...

Duke University responds to summer reading controversy WTVD-TV-Aug 24, 2015

The Duke Freshmen Refusing to Read Fun Home Are Reliving the ... Slate Magazine (blog)-Aug 25, 2015

Duke students reject award-winning book over gay themes Highly Cited-CNN-Aug 24, 2015

Call It the ‘Bechdel-Wallace Test’ In-Depth-The Atlantic-Aug 25, 2015

Fugitive and cloistered virtues Blog-Baltimore Sun (blog)-Aug 25, 2015

[Don W]

I registered for an English course just because. Once I received the required reading list, I went to get the books.

I opened the first book on the list, and found it to be an insulting parody of the Bible. The second book was another diatribe against the Christian faith. The third was a paean to Islam.

I wrote the school back and cancelled my reservation to the course. I also told them that I refuse to pay to have my most basic beliefs insulted and denigrated, especially when i am paying for the priviledge

[Chode]

FDRQ, OBTE...

[Don W]

Dang, I *thought* I had proofed it. Department of redundancy department at your service!

[Old Yeller]

Duck Fuke.

[faithhopecharity]

is it Duke’s Methodist or its Quaker founders that are responsible for all this homo stuff at Duke?

just kidding. Of course, the college’s founders would not tolerate such krap going on at the campus.

But... IF homosexuality is the Order of the Day at Duke, it is not necessary for Duke to select a modern and as-yet unproven homo novel................... they could at least select any of several works by “leading lights” of Western Literature (whose writings would provide the students with helpful historical and multi-cultural perspectives, too).

Such as (and no, I am not an expert in this ‘genre’ or literature, ha!...but anyway)...

Plato (Symposium, Phaedrus)
Petronius (Satyricon)
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Thomas Mann (Death in Venice)
E.M. Forster (Maurice)

picking a work by a time=honored ‘great writer of western civilization’ would have also helped shield Duke from some of the criticism its now getting

[TLI]

“It goes beyond the pale of academic debate,” Republican state legislator Garry Smith told The Post and Courier at the time. “It graphically shows lesbian acts.”

The book’s author, Alison Bechdel, decried the drama surrounding her work.

“It’s sad and absurd that the College of Charleston is facing a funding cut for teaching my book – a book which is, after all, about the toll that this sort of small-mindedness takes on people’s lives,” she told Publisher’s Weekly in 2014.

.

[Don Corleone]

"Heather Has Two Mommies" ver. 2.0

[miss marmelstein]

As if there isn’t great literature with homosexual underpinnings. But, no, not only do they want to push the gay agenda, they want to dumb it down as well.

[RginTN]

I opened the first book on the list, and found it to be an insulting parody of the Bible. The second book was another diatribe against the Christian faith. The third was a paean to Islam.

---

they would never do the reverse. which is why muslims can openly state death to apostates and still be a protected class in the ivory towers of idiocy

[NetAddicted]

Graphic novel? Why don’t they just call it a comic book? How many words are there in this “graphic novel”? And, are they allowed to use pornographic books in colleges?
Doesn’t the idiot author think that it’s perfectly alright for a college to get in trouble for teaching a pornographic comic book? Why don’t they use that Annie comic from Playboy?

[miss marmelstein]

When I looked into getting a Masters in English Literature in the late 80s, early 90s, I was astonished at how bad the courses were - Alice Walker, etc. I wanted the best of the western canon! Luckily, Hillsdale teaches it online now for those interested. Education is the pits!

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Well, they had probably already read all of the Great Books./s

[Vermont Lt]

For those of you who are not up on the most recent millennial lingo, a graphic novel is what we used to call a comic book.

[JoeFromSidney]

Graphic novel? Why don’t they just call it a comic book?

I used to wonder that, too. Then a friend who authors graphic novels, doing both text and illustrations, showed me one of his works. It was science fiction, which I write as a novelist. I noted that with one illustration he could portray a scene that would take me a paragraph or more to describe, and the reader still might not see it as I imagined it when I wrote it. Properly done, graphic novels can be very powerful.

Condemning pornographic novels should be done for the pornography, not for the drawings and text.