Oregon Catalyst: American liberal arts colleges have accumulated a suite of academic departments with the word “studies” in their names. These interdisciplinary fields essentially apply Critical Theory to an eponymous topic and have become philosophy departments for the academics that cannot get a job at the department of philosophy.
The first such department predates Critical Theory: American studies. This field of study emerged as a result of Vernon Louis Parrington‘s 1927 book Main Currents in American Thought where he described his integrated approach this way:
I have undertaken to give some account of the genesis and development in American letters of certain germinal ideas that have come to be reckoned traditionally American—how they came into being here, how they were opposed, and what influence they have exerted in determining the form and scope of our characteristic ideals and institutions. In pursuing such a task, I have chosen to follow the broad path of our political, economic, and social development, rather than the narrower belletristic.
Though Parrington was an influential member of the Progressive Movement of that era, he was no critical theorist. Parrington was basically just a historian making use of literature as a primary source to make extrapolations about the development of American culture.
Harvard University was the first institution to grant an American studies PhD in 1940. Henry Nash Smith, the graduate student that earned it went on to teach American studies as a professor of English at the University of Texas. Before separate departments of American studies were formed, this field resided in either history or English departments for many years.
The other “studies” departments that followed were founded for more than just an interdisciplinary integration of methodology. Rather than study the nation, they were tailored to study a specific ethnicity. more
The unspoken thrust of the article in the Oregon Catalyst is that its author wants to be the chairman of a Studies Studies Department.
Bullshit degrees to get people in debt – then the only thing they can do to make a living is teach the bullshit to other suckers coming in via easy federal loans.
The schools should be sued – that’ll end the loan crisis.
Most of these worthless degrees were designed to give a diploma to people who can’t do math.
Apparently, an ART Study in Basket Weaving was too difficult to master.
In a diversity/inclusion rich environment, you have to dumb down the system so that dumb people can feel like they achieved something worthwhile. Call it the Oprah Winfree system of higher education. You get a degree and you get a degree and you get a degree, too. You all get degrees!
All these degrees enable the recipients to ask “do you want fries with that” to pay off the $100,000 college loans.
Education used to be the Academic Ghetto, but now, I guess it’s the “Studies” Department. Got to have some kind of “studies” degree to ask: “Would you like fries with that?” or “Mocha Cappuccino?”
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
Big trucks OTR are crying for drivers.
Welders,mechanics,plumbers & electricians
are in demand.2 year comm. college gets
you there cheap and low on debt.
Would you like fries with that?
Like China, there should only be College loans for STEM degrees. If wealthy fools want to waste their money on worthless degrees make their parents pay. That would end the waste of having as many college employees as students. Communist indoctrination would take a serious hit.
I read the blog “Captain Capitalism” a few years ago in which he argued that if your degree has “Studies” in it (Black Studies, Woman Studies, Environmental Studies) that you would get a job….at a coffee shop and good luck paying off your $ 60,000 student debt.
When the crash happens these degrees won’t buy you much.
On the other hand a trade or skills will put food on the table.
Get out of big city’s, they will eat each other and many have no cars to get out with. They voted for this.