I got an A in Phallus 101

Los Angeles Times ^ | 1/7/06 | Charlotte Allen

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The "dirty dozen" list of "America's Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses" is out — and Los Angeles-area institutions of higher learning have walked away with one-fourth of the ranked honors (or dishonors). Occidental College, an 1,800-student liberal arts school in Eagle Rock, is the only college on the list to collect not one but two citations for excellence at offering trendy theories of gender, skin color and white-male oppression at the expense of actual academic content.

UCLA didn't fare badly either, with one citation. And believe me, the competition was stiff. The Southern California colleges were competing against such nationally recognized PC heavyweights as Cornell, Amherst, the University of Michigan and, of course, Duke.

The list comes from the Young America's Foundation, a 40-year-old nonprofit funded by conservative individuals and foundations. Its No. 1 slot this year for bizarre class offerings went to Occidental, for a course called "The Phallus."

No, it's not a biology course. It's a survey, offered by Oxy's department of critical theory and social justice, of "feminist and queer takings-on of the phallus." Topics include "the relation between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism."

You might wonder how a lesbian can have a phallus, or whether it's possible to say "phallologocentrism" three times without tripping on your tongue, but if so, it's likely that you won't be getting an "A" from Occidental professor Jeffrey Tobin, who is teaching the course this spring semester.

[ItsForTheChildren]

Things that make you go hmmmmm.

With this subject matter and that comment ...
must ... not ... go .. there...

[BJClinton]

Meh. A Professor Lewinksy joke would be too easy.

[Mad Dawg]

Personally, I think that anyone who headlines an article with, "I got an A in Phallus 101" is insensitive to the rest of us who might not have done so well, had we tried.

[Charles Henrickson]

Topics include "the relation between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism."

Sometimes a phallus is just a phallus.

[Charles Henrickson]

You might wonder how a lesbian can have a phallus. . . .

Wouldn't that be a logical phallusy?

[Charles Henrickson]

Topics include . . . the Jewish phallus. . . .

That discussion always gets cut short after a week.

[WOSG]

Annual tuition at Occidental, a private college, is $32,800. That means if you take "The Phallus" and "Blackness" (plus its prerequisite "Whiteness") this year on a four-course-per-semester schedule, you will have set your parents back $12,300.

This BS cost $6150 a course.

Harrumph. I can find cheaper BS at a nearby farm.

[BenLurkin]

[Spyder]

Does anybody actually know a person who has taken such a worthless class? Would you let your kids enroll in such worthless classes?

I just sent the link to our daughter, a junior at Cal Poly. Her dad adds that we'd better not see anything like these on her transcript, LOL!

[xp38]

Nothing in DC can be taller than that um object.

[DollyCali]

you are much too funny!

and as far as this thread.. geeze... If I had signed up for a class like that & my parents found out, I would have been yanked out of school in a heartbeat & locked in my room for at least a year!

[Lancey Howard]

Plenty of kids take idiotic courses like this one as an "elective" in order to add an easy 'A' to the transcript. Back in my day, everybody took 'Theater Arts 190'.

[FreedomCalls]

Sometimes a phallus is just a phallus.

And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[FreedomCalls]

A watertower in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

[Cold Heat]

Actually, I could care less what they waste their parents money on. They do stupid things because they have not matured. But then again.....who wants to mature!

I would think, to be fair, as long as the college balances the curriculum with vagina classes, everything should be on the up side. But I'm hardly a expert.:-)

[JHBowden]

This battle was lost decades ago.

Brahms, Bouguereau, Madison, Milton, are all but ghosts today.

[RoadGumby]

That HAS to be the post of the day

[MaxMax]

and not enough serious challenges.

[GSlob]

"Occidental professor Jeffrey Tobin, who is teaching the course this spring semester."
What a phallus is this professor Tobin.

[GSlob]

"You might wonder how a lesbian can have a phallus. . .
.Wouldn't that be a logical phallusy?"
This line of reasoning is fellatious.