About the practical/ideological course ratio - no idea how that works in the US, but here in Europe, the numerous humanity courses often times have a lot less students. (Sometimes some from the catalog are getting cancelled if there are too few applicants.)
And funding usually correlates to number of students, plus STEM fields are actually sometimes subsidized stronger... might be interesting to look into how the budgeting works at your college. Are there ways for students to take part in these politics?
Joseph Heath: "A long time ago, Habermas wrote a critical essay on Foucault, in which he accused him of 'cryptonormativism.' The accusation was that, although Foucault’s work was clearly animated by a set of moral concerns, he refused to state clearly what his moral commitments were, and instead just used normatively loaded vocabulary, like 'power,' or 'regime,' as rhetorical devices, to induce the reader to share his normative assessments, while officially denying that he was doing any such thing. The problem, in other words, is that Foucault was smuggling in his values, while pretending he didn’t have any." https://induecourse.utoronto.ca/the-problem-with-critical-studies/
Really enjoyed this! Your writing was funny and succinct, and I definitely did not expect that one class to be in architecture. Woof.
Food for thought: is the purpose of college to get a job or just to learn? I think that there’s no real answer - different students are going to be there for different reasons.
At a liberal arts school like Yale, there’s going to be plenty of people who aren’t actually worried about future job prospects and just want to explore. Are some of these exploratory classes absurd? Sometimes, yeah. I think it’s also just what a substantial portion of the community wants.
You’re going to meet all kinds of people at school, and they’re going to be ridiculous in all kinds of ways! I wish you lots of luck in getting to know people you’re going to disagree with lots and making some good friends too.
The anthropology class listed in your initial list looks like a completely normal and anodyne class that addresses neo liberalism in a perfectly normie way. Its inclusion undercuts some of the force of your argument here.
Also, the worst descriptions are written for the professor, not the potential student taking a class. The audience is the students! Also, these obtuse and long descriptions are for classes that are hemoraging students. I know, I teach English at a liberal arts college. I personally feel that colleges should do away with any "Studies" department or programs.
I agree that some progressive language is cringey but a lot of these, like the affect theory course and the slavery and capitalism course, seem fine to me. This is something I see a lot in complaints like yours: there are legitimate grievances, though they’re fairly small, but when legitimate objects of grievance are targeted a bunch of other stuff gets grouped in.
Like, in answer to your (rhetorical, I think) question, the Comparative Colonialisms course seems like it should help people think clearly about the history of the U.S. and disentangle or connect the legacies of various events in that history that might be called colonial. That seems good!
FWIW, as someone who just graduated from a similar school, and with a degree in English no less, I only ever took one class that was indoctrination-y. Which is one too many, sure, but overwhelmingly my experience was that it was the students who came in doctrinaire and professors—including leftist profs—who consistently pushed or tried to push them toward more critical thinking and nuance. Take heart! (And Yuck Fale.)
“inter-American Cold War” sounds like a slightly asinine way of describing, you know, the Cold War in the Americas, which was an actual thing that happened and was probably at least moderately relevant to Spanish-language literature.
I probably would have gone with “intra-American,” but if you take North and South America as separate Americas, “inter-“ is OK.
What do you mean by "net-negative"? I've seen this phrasing describes in several blogs on here, and it seems like there's a deeper meaning being referenced here that I can't discern.
They're gesturing at a utilitarian calculus: negative or positive utility. It's talking about morality as a bank balance. I'm not sure if Peter Singer uses this exact language but plenty of blogosphere Effective Altruist act-consequentialists are influenced by his arguments.
I absolutely adore the cute little flags that show up to describe how fast the results were retrieved.
'Faster than you can sell out into consulting...'
Those people should be teaching some of the professors how to write.
On a slightly more serious note. I think all of these are basically foreign languages of a parallel culture. My math education stopped at high school geometry (although I will be taking college algebra this fall) so the math course description is about as foreign as the kooky course descriptions are.
I think the most interesting point you raise is that many of the descriptions read like theses. That's possibly meaningful, although I don't know what it might mean.
Reminds me of “ marxism-Leninism” classes i had to take at Polytechnic University in Leningrad in 1970’s, the big difference though we never took it seriously…they were mandatory in Soviet Union. The odd thing is that i rejected all my friends claims that this is going on in schools, but looks like they have legit concerns, and some of Trump’s effort make more sense now…by the way, are there “conservative” Universities that have opposite perspective, or are there none?
About the practical/ideological course ratio - no idea how that works in the US, but here in Europe, the numerous humanity courses often times have a lot less students. (Sometimes some from the catalog are getting cancelled if there are too few applicants.)
And funding usually correlates to number of students, plus STEM fields are actually sometimes subsidized stronger... might be interesting to look into how the budgeting works at your college. Are there ways for students to take part in these politics?
Joseph Heath: "A long time ago, Habermas wrote a critical essay on Foucault, in which he accused him of 'cryptonormativism.' The accusation was that, although Foucault’s work was clearly animated by a set of moral concerns, he refused to state clearly what his moral commitments were, and instead just used normatively loaded vocabulary, like 'power,' or 'regime,' as rhetorical devices, to induce the reader to share his normative assessments, while officially denying that he was doing any such thing. The problem, in other words, is that Foucault was smuggling in his values, while pretending he didn’t have any." https://induecourse.utoronto.ca/the-problem-with-critical-studies/
Really enjoyed this! Your writing was funny and succinct, and I definitely did not expect that one class to be in architecture. Woof.
Food for thought: is the purpose of college to get a job or just to learn? I think that there’s no real answer - different students are going to be there for different reasons.
At a liberal arts school like Yale, there’s going to be plenty of people who aren’t actually worried about future job prospects and just want to explore. Are some of these exploratory classes absurd? Sometimes, yeah. I think it’s also just what a substantial portion of the community wants.
You’re going to meet all kinds of people at school, and they’re going to be ridiculous in all kinds of ways! I wish you lots of luck in getting to know people you’re going to disagree with lots and making some good friends too.
The anthropology class listed in your initial list looks like a completely normal and anodyne class that addresses neo liberalism in a perfectly normie way. Its inclusion undercuts some of the force of your argument here.
A tangential piece of advice: take Sanskrit! I really enjoyed it at Yale, and it’s guaranteed to have a very small class size.
MATH 120 is also great, though somewhat dependent on who teaches it that year.
Curious what college this is…did I miss that?
Yale! I think I mentioned it in passing once, but I have some gross weird embarrassment over it, so I don't like being too explicit...
Thank you for clarifying! And for sharing. That is some crazy ass ideology for college courses. Yikes. Glad I graduated when I did.
Counter point: Take all the crazy ones and become a full time anti-woke substack spy.
Social theory of the city is off the rails already 🤪
Also, the worst descriptions are written for the professor, not the potential student taking a class. The audience is the students! Also, these obtuse and long descriptions are for classes that are hemoraging students. I know, I teach English at a liberal arts college. I personally feel that colleges should do away with any "Studies" department or programs.
Yes like social theory of the city. I hope it bleeds to death 😆
I think "discursive contexts" is the height of euphemism. Do they mean discussion?
I agree that some progressive language is cringey but a lot of these, like the affect theory course and the slavery and capitalism course, seem fine to me. This is something I see a lot in complaints like yours: there are legitimate grievances, though they’re fairly small, but when legitimate objects of grievance are targeted a bunch of other stuff gets grouped in.
Like, in answer to your (rhetorical, I think) question, the Comparative Colonialisms course seems like it should help people think clearly about the history of the U.S. and disentangle or connect the legacies of various events in that history that might be called colonial. That seems good!
FWIW, as someone who just graduated from a similar school, and with a degree in English no less, I only ever took one class that was indoctrination-y. Which is one too many, sure, but overwhelmingly my experience was that it was the students who came in doctrinaire and professors—including leftist profs—who consistently pushed or tried to push them toward more critical thinking and nuance. Take heart! (And Yuck Fale.)
“inter-American Cold War” sounds like a slightly asinine way of describing, you know, the Cold War in the Americas, which was an actual thing that happened and was probably at least moderately relevant to Spanish-language literature.
I probably would have gone with “intra-American,” but if you take North and South America as separate Americas, “inter-“ is OK.
Not a problem at uatx…
What do you mean by "net-negative"? I've seen this phrasing describes in several blogs on here, and it seems like there's a deeper meaning being referenced here that I can't discern.
Net-negative means (roughly), if you take all the upsides and downsides of a thing, the downsides overall outweigh the upsides
eg, “smoking might be enjoyable in the short term, but it’s a net negative in the long run”
They're gesturing at a utilitarian calculus: negative or positive utility. It's talking about morality as a bank balance. I'm not sure if Peter Singer uses this exact language but plenty of blogosphere Effective Altruist act-consequentialists are influenced by his arguments.
Described*
I absolutely adore the cute little flags that show up to describe how fast the results were retrieved.
'Faster than you can sell out into consulting...'
Those people should be teaching some of the professors how to write.
On a slightly more serious note. I think all of these are basically foreign languages of a parallel culture. My math education stopped at high school geometry (although I will be taking college algebra this fall) so the math course description is about as foreign as the kooky course descriptions are.
I think the most interesting point you raise is that many of the descriptions read like theses. That's possibly meaningful, although I don't know what it might mean.
Reminds me of “ marxism-Leninism” classes i had to take at Polytechnic University in Leningrad in 1970’s, the big difference though we never took it seriously…they were mandatory in Soviet Union. The odd thing is that i rejected all my friends claims that this is going on in schools, but looks like they have legit concerns, and some of Trump’s effort make more sense now…by the way, are there “conservative” Universities that have opposite perspective, or are there none?
Liberty University comes to mind as a conservative Christian university that's more conservative than Christian.
I know of Hillsdale College (https://www.hillsdale.edu/) and the University of Austin (https://www.uaustin.org/)... George Mason University economics are also known for their libertarian-ish slant.
University of Chicago.
I'd assume Notre Dame would tend at least a bit conservative, given the religious affiliation.