Thursday, June 5, 2014

America is Full Of Crazy People on College Campuses

Behold: the over-credentialed masses can now get a degree that includes a course on Miley Cyrus. 

TWERKOLOGY 101?!?!?!

Skidmore College costs $60,000 per year. 

Miley101

"Chernoff told The Guardian she created the course “as a creative and rigorous way of looking at what’s relevant about sociology and sociology theory.” She told The Saratogian the class will delve into race, that “Miley is white but wants to appropriate a black sound. … She doesn’t discuss her white privilege.”

"The course is also set to cover topics including Cyrus’ rise to fame, gender stratification, what happens to Disney stars as they age, as well as LGBT issues. It’s also been described as a “feminist critique of media, using Miley as a lens.”

"This is the first time the class has been offered at the upstate New York private institution, at which tuition amounts to about $60,000 per year. Chernoff has said the class will not be an easy A, and will include essays and research projects."

Who is this Chernoff lady?

Some background and please tell me if you understand WTF this means:

"My dissertation, “Experiencing Diverse Cities: Community Based Arts, Social Interaction, and Progressive Politics ,” is based on ethnographic research conducted over a period of 8 years at three different community-arts organizations in a major Mid-Atlantic city. Recent scholarship and public policy ask arts to drive economic growth for urban revitalization; this perspective takes positive social interaction as a given within the larger project of arts-based urban economic development."

"However, the social life of community-based art and related democratic practices provide another lens to explore the role of arts and arts organizations within the contemporary city. Within the fractured context of American cities (racial and ideological segregation), community-based arts provide a testing ground for social interaction across demographic difference (race, class, geography), a place where “culture builds community” (Stern & Siefert, 2002), albeit not unproblematically. This dissertation explores democratic practices around diversity within urban community-based arts organizations devoted to progressive social change."

These are the people teaching your children. And teaching them how to teach. 

Carolyn Chernoff