Fun Home - A University Controversy

[BloodRider]

Duke University (my alma mater, which I love fiercely and deeply) assigned all its incoming Freshman Alison Blechdel's graphic novel Fun Home as summer reading. Very embarrassingly, an entitled little snot of an incoming freshman (I'm trying not to tell you how I really feel) has started a controversy, originally on facebook, that has been picked up by first the student newspaper, The Chronicle and now by national news (I'm having problems posting links for some reason, but a quick google search of Fun Home and Duke will tell you what you need to know).  I'm putting this in Gen Chat rather than in Lit because I think the interesting thing isn't the graphic novel on its merits (I haven't read it, but now I will) but rather the "controversy" itself - what it says about students (IMO - those complaining are entitled and closed minded and don't deserve to be at one of the best universities in the country); what it says about higher learning institutions (IMO the fact that they felt comfortable posting this at all shows the gradual commoditization of higher learning in the US - I hope Duke sticks to its guns here); what, if anything, should happen to the students in question (IMO - they should fail any assignment connected with the book in question).

I can tell you this much - it was made into an awesome musical!

 

Other than that Dukies gonna Duke, I guess.  Spoilt is as spoilt does.  Also go Deacs; which, if I am being honest is prolly just as bad as Duke for entitled shitheads, but like you we have determined they are our entitled shitheads.

[Swordfish]

Fucking micro-agressions. 

 

Seems I only barely avoided all this nonsense, finishing college when I did.

 

 

Me too.  I'm glad I managed to doge all these particular tiny little bullets that must have been whizzing around my head the whole time I was in college.  What a traumatizing experience it must have been, so you can imagine how grateful i am that i did not realize it was happening to me.

[Iskaral Pust]

Career-oriented tertiary education, rather than for general intellectual development, is not the same as consumer-oriented tertiary education.  Although there is some overlap and they may be hard to disentangle.

 

The longstanding ideal among faculty, especially in the humanities, is for education to facilitate general intellectual development.  The culture war* in education has been between this declining view of education and the growing demand for career oriented education.  But this battle mainly occurs in to which programs students apply, not in what is taught in those programs: there are very few art history programs offering classes on how to stop annoying tourists from touching exhibits during a museum tour, or women's studies programs teaching classes on how to manage day to day operations at a Planned Parenthood. 

 

It is consumer-oriented education that is changing what is taught in programs, and it is mainly in the humanities programs, not the career-oriented programs, where students are staging these protests against the material taught.  Consumer-orientation is where universities and colleges have made a Faustian pact for financial success: they dare not offend any students or their competitors will pander to the students in a race to the bottom and the moral university will see its application rate and tuition revenue decline.  It's like a prisoner's dilemma where no school trusts its competitors not to pander.  And the strongly pro-liberal humanities faculty has partly created this Frankenstein monster by contributing to the growth of identity politics and victim canonization.

 

One aggravating factor might be that the career-oriented programs are siphoning away some of the more pragmatic students, leaving behind a higher proportion of idealistic and entitled students, because you have to be a bit precious -- emotionally and/or socioeconomically -- to choose to major in French Lit these days.

 

 

*And this is a valid battle IMO, not just a tawdry reflection of a corporate takeover of society and intellectual autonomy.  The longstanding ideal reflected a world where only a wealthy minority attended tertiary education.  It was a luxury available to those who would enter the professional class regardless of their undergraduate experience, because they often went directly to career-oriented postgraduate and because they had the advantage of social privilege and low competition for and access to the professional class.  But this was upended first with the GI Bill and then from the 1960s onwards as scrappy middle class kids, especially immigrants (the early poster child was Jewish, now east Asian), used career-oriented education to force their way into the professional class and increase competition and reduce WASP privilege. 

 

The US is very unusual in having 30% of the population attend four year university programs.  We provide the middle class with far better access to university but the corresponding trade-off is that the middle-class students may to be more pragmatic about the trade-off in career earnings vs. cost of education, and so they tend to choose career-oriented programs.  A degree in the humanities with weak career prospects is becoming a luxury good for the wealthy.

 

 

My solution to all of this, to reduce the fragile sensibilities of the humanities students and to ensure career-oriented programs don't just churn out corporatist drones, is to reverse the trend in ideological Balkanization.  This forum is actually an example of the problem, as much as I enjoy this forum: it acquires a cultural identity and then users Balkanize.  Dissenters feel uncomfortable, and sometimes are made to feel uncomfortable, and leave.  It happens in a million ways in modern society: we self-select into the culture with which we agree and shut-out those with which we disagree.  So STEM students sneer at Philosophy 101 and skip it while literature students avoid math classes that terrify them, just as tea-partiers watch Fox News and liberals listen to NPR.

 

Career-orientation and consumer-orientation only facilitate the problem, they are not the root cause.

[Larry of the Lawn]

 
It sounds like his complaint is that seeing these images gives him a very Un-Christian boner.  The argument seems to be that in viewing the novel he is looking lustfully at these cartoon women and is therefore a sinner against his will.  His solution is to not look at the images but I wonder if he has considered just not looking at them lustfully. 
 
This seems to go hand in hand with other ways in which people think women should cover up so that men don't behave badly.

Huh. Seems like if he wants to be true to that interpretation of the the text he needs to either gouge out his eyes or chop off his boner.

Also seems like those lines could be taken to lessen the gravity of adultery or lust, kind of tongue in cheek. Especially if you consider the whole " let whoever is without sin cast the first stone" thing.

[Aemon Stark]

I'm mainly just p.o'd that Duke is in the news because of a poor admittance decision like that.  Hope the kid doesn't go to law school (though I'm sure he will).

 

According to the byline of his op-ed he plans on studying "Global Health" and is "passionate" about sub-Saharan economic development. 

 

So he's a pretentious tool in other words. I don't know what possesses undergrads to think that they should be looking at soft, nebulous areas like "global health" or hyper-specialized things like regional African development economics. 

[TerraPrime]

 

According to the byline of his op-ed he plans on studying "Global Health" and is "passionate" about sub-Saharan economic development. 

 

So he's a pretentious tool in other words. I don't know what possesses undergrads to think that they should be looking at soft, nebulous areas like "global health" or hyper-specialized things like regional African development economics. 

 

 

That's what passes for sophistication in the world of competing to get into top-tier colleges. This is like Ms. USA contestants declaiming their plans to save the children, save the seals, promote healthier diets for all Americans, etc.

[Kat]

So STEM students sneer at Philosophy 101 and skip it while literature students avoid math classes that terrify them, just as tea-partiers watch Fox News and liberals listen to NPR.

 

Career-orientation and consumer-orientation only facilitate the problem, they are not the root cause.

 

I dunno about that. I seemed to be the only one who avoided the philosophy classes in college, as they brought out the blowhard logic fiends in all my classmates.

[ThinkerX]

I wonder...

...here and elsewhere I have seen posts and articles putting forth the notion that modern technology (internet in particular) is making society more divided, creating mutually exclusive 'bubbles,' where nary an opposing view is heard.

Yet the real world doesn't work that way much of the time. If one has a job with lots of coworkers or requires lots of contact with others, then sooner or later, folks will have to interact with those outside their bubble. By and large, same is probably true of college. And for those committed to life within a particular bubble, then outside views must be downright frightening.

Hence, these attempts to deflect reality from the bubble.

I figure a whole bunch of people are going to be in for rude awakenings.

[litechick]

 

So he's a pretentious tool in other words.

 

 

 

 

That's what passes for sophistication in the world of competing to get into top-tier colleges. This is like Ms. USA contestants declaiming their plans to save the children, save the seals, promote healthier diets for all Americans, etc.

 

I wasn't going to say it but I'm glad you did. :)  (Both of you.)

[James Arryn]

The thing about students is that they suck.

[Solmyr]

IP, I agree with most of your post, but one of your implications is that a premise for this problem is the high number of people in the US with access to tertiary education. Although a connection might exist, I do not think that the phenomena currently observed in US universities are caused by the increased proportion of the population that attends university - for in 'socialist' Europe, where the proportion of people, who pursue tertiary education is at least as high or even higher than the US*, this problem is either not occurring at all or, when present, occurs with far less severity than what is observed across the pond.

 

* depending on the country/region you choose to examine

[Iskaral Pust]

Solmyr - I think the financial competition between universities is a big factor. State-funded European universities have no need to pander to the students.

But most western social democracies don't have anything close to the 30% attendance at 4yr university programs. Most are more like 10-20%, at least from data I saw in the Economist (I can't post a link from my phone, and perhaps not at all given the paywall).

[Solmyr]

But most western social democracies don't have anything close to the 30% attendance at 4yr university programs. Most are more like 10-20%, at least from data I saw in the Economist (I can't post a link from my phone, and perhaps not at all given the paywall).

You could be right, although my impression certainly points at a higher percentage. But I admit I have not researched any data on the matter. Perhaps across the entire EU or even Europe the number could be this low, but if you only account for, say, western and northern Europe you might get higher percentages.

 

As for the financial competition, I concur.

[Hayyoth]

Fucking micro-agressions. 

 

Seems I only barely avoided all this nonsense, finishing college when I did.

Yeah this. Spoiled babies carting around their fainting couches with a string of pearls in easy reach to clutch lest they be triggered in to full blown PTSD by someone saying something that might perhaps be contradictory to their worldview. I totally blame the parents.

 

Btw 99.9% of this crap has nothing to do with religion but well done Zabzie for finding an example.

[James Arryn]

Yeah this. Spoiled babies carting around their fainting couches with a string of pearls in easy reach to clutch lest they be triggered in to full blown PTSD by someone saying something that might perhaps be contradictory to their worldview. I totally blame the parents.
 
Btw 99.9% of this crap has nothing to do with religion but well done Zabzie for finding an example.

A) that seems a very specific number.

A2) does this mean you're refusing the assignment?

[Hayyoth]

A) that seems a very specific number.

A2) does this mean you're refusing the assignment?

 I'm not here to educate you.......

[TerraPrime]

Yeah this. Spoiled babies carting around their fainting couches with a string of pearls in easy reach to clutch lest they be triggered in to full blown PTSD by someone saying something that might perhaps be contradictory to their worldview. I totally blame the parents.

 

This is why many of us don't take most of what you say seriously.

[Hayyoth]

 

This is why many of us don't take most of what you say seriously.

The problem TP is that the kind of close mindedness that's encouraged in college's is the absolute worse preparation for working life. Yes when you get a job for a private business you will have to deal with difficult customers and co-workers who say and do shit you dislike. It's called the real world.

[TerraPrime]

The problem TP is that the kind of close mindedness that's encouraged in college's is the absolute worse preparation for working life. Yes when you get a job for a private business you will have to deal with difficult customers and co-workers who say and do shit you dislike. It's called the real world.

 

 

No shit. It's like you just missed the entire point of assigning "Fun Home" to incoming first-year students to begin with. Does that look like an institutionalized policy to coddle and to shield to you?

 

The point of your post that makes it rather useless is your characterization that trigger warnings are about avoiding subject matters that make people feel challenged or uncomfortable. That means your understanding of what trigger warnings are supposed to accomplish is about at the Tumblr level, and really have no relevance to the discussion of its place in college classrooms. That's the signifier that your comment needs not to be taken seriously. 

[James Arryn]

The problem TP is that the kind of close mindedness that's encouraged in college's is the absolute worse preparation for working life.

As long as you're sure.