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
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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!
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Think carefully, grasshopper! I will reveal the answer to this mystery in due time.
I vote course B.
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.
Never read the blogosphere when you’re hungry. It’s just like the supermarket in that respect.
Your jokewriters are definitely eating better this week. Give ’em a raise!