Reply to NY Times editorial: "Universities Like Yale Need a Reckoning"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here's one concrete step he proposes (and I couldn't agree more).

“[b]We” need to openly recommit to learning and teaching about the whole of our knowledge — our histories, our literature, our sciences, our social structures[/b], as much or more than we stress our racial, ethnic and gendered parts. Those fields of study are important and established for good reasons. But the whole and the parts have to sing together or there is no democracy or broad learning or informed citizenry in the end. We could drown in the habits of our own particularities and favorite ideologies, and lose hold of how humans connect across a multitude of difference. We need answers for our critics who believe we are an ideological monolith, whether they are right or not. We may not like universals anymore, but there are some, like elections, that stun millions into despair or glee.[/quote]

Maybe I'm obtuse, but what kinds of classes does he want to see taught that aren't being taught?[/quote]

It’s an issue of how history, literature, etc are framed.

We’ve overcompensated for the fact that these disciplines used to be taught with too much emphasis on white men. [b]Now it’s like if you teach Plato, you’re somehow racist. [/b]

The point is to teach all of it, rather than cherry-picking. [/quote]

The problem with a straw man like this one is that it is so easily refuted.

https://catalog.yale.edu/ycps/subjects-of-instruction/classics/

[/quote]
Agreed. Whenever I see arguments like these I wonder if these are current humanities majors or people whove even looked on current curriculum. Most colleges have expanded offerings but the requirements are still the “greats” that people moan about being dead and persecuted[/quote]

How those classes are taught is the concern. You can be sure the “greats” are approached from some screwy woke perspective. Shakespeare through the race / class / gender lens, Queering Shakespeare, etc. 🙄[/quote]

So let's look at the course offerings at Yale. If you are right, I should be unable to find a class about Shakespeare that is not from a "screwy woke perspective" right?

Why don't you click through and tell us what you learned, since you are so certain you know what's on offer:

[url]https://courses.yale.edu/?keyword=shakespeare&srcdb=202501[/url]

I did, and there are a bunch of bog standard "Early European Tragedy" and "History of the English Language" type course, and then ONE course that appears to use a specific lens. Honestly, it sounds super fun:

Consideration of the literary, cultural, and political implications of staging race and religion in plays by Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Cary, Ben Jonson, Thomas Heywood, and others. How sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Londoners derived impressions of the outside world from the theater, particularly exotic strangers in the form of villainous and virtuous Jews, seductive and tyrannical Turks, noble and ignoble Moors, Indian princesses, decadent Catholics, tricksy Venetians, and cross-dressing, gender-bending pirates.

[/quote]

Agreed.  The audiences were very interested in "diversity", "racial issues", and "gender issues".

It's well known that Shakespeare's company was all male and the males pretended to be females pretending they were males.  That plus what any drama club member (such as me) knows from putting on high school theater shows suggests that "Queering Shakespeare" is pretty mainstream.

https://teach.shakespearesglobe.com/fact-sheet-actors#:~:text=In%20Shakespeare's%20time%20acting%20was,theatres%20in%20England%20until%201660.[/quote]

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