The Michigan Review

C.J.'s "Foulest of Fall" 1998

by C.J. Carnacchio

Continuing in the tradition of Editor Emeritus Ben Kepple's "Worst of Winter" columns, I proudly present my "Foulest of Fall." The Foulest of Fall consists of Fall 1998 courses which are politically biased, intellectually useless, frivolous, and just plain funny. Before I get into the list, allow me to give any freshman reading this some friendly advice:

1. Try to avoid any courses which use the following words in their course descriptions: race, gender, class, social justice, racism, environmental racism or justice, sexism, Third World, diversity, imperialism, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender roles, whiteness, liberation, feminism, multiculturalism, homophobia, patriarchy, oppression, deconstructionism, domination and heterosexism.
2. Avoid the Women's Studies department altogether. It is not a real department anyway. It is really just a convenient way to increase the number of female faculty, make the University look like a paragon of diversity and keep hordes of unshaven, militant feminists from pelting the Fleming Building with their Birkenstocks.
3. Avoid any courses which are part of a theme semester. The theme semester's only purpose is to advance the administration's latest political agenda and brainwash students.
4. When taking a course taught by President Bollinger, do not stare directly at his evil, hypnotic hairdo.

Without further ado, here is the Foulest of Fall 1998:

Afro-American Studies 203 - Issues in Afro-American Development: Affirmative Action
This course has no real intellectual or educational value. It is merely a piece of nicely packaged University propaganda whose sole purpose is to defend the University's interests in the admissions lawsuits. The course description reads as follows: "There is a great concern that all the rights gained in the sixties are now being eroded by legal challenges to affirmative action rules. (Read: There is a vast right-wing conspiracy underway to oppress minorities and women.) Indeed, there is a hue and cry that there is now reverse discrimination and that preferential treatment is illegal. (Read: The Republicans are trying to bring back slavery.) ...This course will address the dilemma of the response and attempt to shape some thinking about the fight for affirmative action. (Read: You will think the way we tell you. Dissent will not be tolerated.) The cases at the University of Michigan and the University of Texas will be examined not for their legal construct but as their meaning as a social construct. (Read: You will defend the University's position no matter what. Give your soul to Bollinger.) In addition, Proposition 209 will be discussed as an important watershed in the anti-civil rights movement. (Read: Governor Pete Wilson is secretly working for the Ku Klux Klan.) ...Some attention will be paid to Justice Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly - two major figures against affirmative action. (Read: These two Uncle Toms are traitors to their race and psychologically warped. They are racist in that they hate themselves for being black, and this, not any honest intellectual disagreement, explains their opposition to affirmative action.) The objective is to begin the process of cogent action and to develop the language to articulate affirmative action as a right and not a benefit. (Read: We will defend affirmative action by any means necessary. We will plague the campus with social justice terrorists like Jessica "Miss White Liberal Guilt" Curtin until all the racist conservatives have been purged. Let the revolution begin!)

American Culture 204 - Social Constructions of Whiteness in American Culture
From the LS&A course guide: "The past five years have seen a virtual explosion of scholarship grappling with the meaning of 'whiteness' in American culture. This course is designed to introduce students to this new exciting scholarship." I believe this course can best be described as cotton candy for the mind. Some of the representative texts from American popular culture which will be used to help define "whiteness" are films such as White Men Can't Jump and Deliverance. Since when is a film involving the anal rape of Ned Beatty by the Beverly Hillbillies from Hell considered educational? The course guide description also states that performance artists such as Elvis impersonators will be examined. Elvis impersonators as performance art? [Insert your own biting remark here.] I wonder if watching white-trash-guru Jerry Springer will be considered extra-credit or independent study. This course will undoubtedly be a leftist free-for-all of stereotyping and bashing the evils white America. While this course has absolutely no intellectual value, it would provide students with some comic relief from their real courses.

Lloyd Hall Scholars Program Mini-Course 151/Sec.001 - Everybody Gets Laid Freshman Year - And other Myths of Male and Female Sexuality
No this is not President Lee "Daydream Believer" Bollinger's personal guarantee of physical gratification, so all you freshmen put your pants back on right now! The course guide description reads like a list of daytime talk show topics: "What do women want? What do men want? Do 'real women' really need roses and candlelight in order to enjoy sex? Is a 'real man' always ready for sex, regardless of the circumstances? Do condoms reduce the pleasure of sex?" Thow in bestiality and you have got a "Sweeps Week" blockbuster. This is supposed to be a serious educational institution; if students want advice on love or sex let them write Dear Abby or Dr. Ruth. I'll give some free advice to all the freshmen ladies out there: Do not go anywhere near the frat houses if you are looking for sincere gentlemen or value your virtue. Frat boys think roofies are a drink mixer.

University Course 151 - First-Year Social Science Seminar Section 011: Medicine and Media from Hippocrates through ER
From the LS&A course guide: "We will study the development of medicine as a science and how its perception has changed through the media." Part of the course will examine movies and television shows such as The Hospital, Marcus Welby M.D., Saint Elsewhere, and ER. Why even bother to take this course when you can stay home and watch TV Land or NBC's "Must See TV?" Maybe next semester, the University can have a course about lawyers and the media with such educational programming as The Firm, L.A. Law, and Perry Mason. Or how about sex and the media and we can all watch some nifty pornos. Hell, let's do away with books and articles completely, and just watch films and TV shows in every clas. The MTV generation no longer has the proper attention span for the written word anymore, anyway.

Natural Resources and Environment 306/501 Sec. 055 - Environmental Thought and Activism
This course deals with environmental justice, environmental racism, and environmental and social justice. In the words of South Park's Eric Cartman, "It's just a bunch of tree-huggin' hippie crap!" The purpose of the course is to bring "race, class, and gender issues" into environmental discourse. Gaia forbid this University should have one course that does not involve race, class and gender issues. The University could offer a course in Norwegian folk dancing and cod fishing and still find a way to involve race, class, and gender issues.

Women's Studies 347: Feminist Perspective on Lesbian Studies Sec. 001 - Crossing Erotic Boundaries: Representations of Lesbianism in Early Modern Western Europe
I could not find a course description in the LS&A course guide, but I think the title speaks for itself. Basically, the course will be filled with "representations" of naked women cavorting and copulating with each other. The course sounds like Penthouse with an artsy tone. Will the course material come in a plain brown wrapper? Can I receive independent study cradit for all the hours I have listened to and watched America's foremost authority on Lesbian Studies, Professor Howard Stern?

These six courses represent just the tip of the iceberg in the ever increasing list of useless tripe offered at this institution of lower learning. Hope you are enjoying your clourses this term. If not, there is always the Winter Term ot should I say the Worst of Winter. MR

This article was published in the 16 September 1998 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 17, Number 1).
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