The Secret of My Success

Some of you are asking, “Tim, is there some way I can be featured in Horowitzian jeremiads against insubstantial fluff courses, too?”

It’s going to take a lot of work! Not every lightweight course can get a nod, because the competition is so damned fierce.

You might think, “Oh, my, I know how to do it: I’ll assign a comic book.” That’s not good enough!. You’ll never make the big time that way. Some of you are thinking that merely assigning queer theory will do the trick. No!

Here is a test. Snatch the pebble from my hand, grasshopper. Which six-week course might make the next inventory from conservative skimmers?

A) Queer Hermeneutics of Pornography and Superheroes: Helping People Who Hate America

Week 1 Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative

Week 2 The Old Testament

Week 3 Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason

Week 4 Plato, The Republic

Week 5 The Declaration of Independence

Week 6 James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans

———-

B) Why America is Great!

Week 1 Jenna Jameson, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star

Week 2 The collected works of Ward Churchill

Week 3 Sayyid Qutb, Milestones

Week 4 Grant Morrison, The Doom Patrol

Week 5 Michel Foucault, anything

Week 6 Attend meetings of the local ANSWER chapter. Class project: Smash the state!

———————

Think carefully, grasshopper! I will reveal the answer to this mystery in due time.

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4 Responses to The Secret of My Success

  1. Miles says:

    I vote course B.

  2. Alan Jacobs says:

    Oh come on, Tim, enough with the smokescreens. You’re trying to prevent us from noticing that anyone can arouse the attention, and the fury, of the tighty-righty culture-warriors by simply including in a course title or description one key word: enchilada. They just go nuts when they see that, it’s like a red flag in front of a bull.

  3. Timothy Burke says:

    Never read the blogosphere when you’re hungry. It’s just like the supermarket in that respect.

  4. Sdorn says:

    Your jokewriters are definitely eating better this week. Give ’em a raise!

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