Graduate English Program at U. Chicago to Only Accept ‘Black Studies’ Applicants This Year
“For the 2020-2021 graduate admissions cycle, the University of Chicago English Department is accepting only applicants interested in working in and with Black Studies.”
They cite the Black Lives Matter movement as the inspiration for this. How does it even make sense?
Campus Reform reports:
U. Chicago English Dept. says it will ONLY admit ‘Black Studies’ grad students this year
University of Chicago English Department graduate programs will only be open to applicants who plan to study “Black Studies” this year.
According to its admissions information webpage, the department is only accepting graduate applications from those who are “interested in working in and with Black Studies” for this academic year.
“For the 2020-2021 graduate admissions cycle, the University of Chicago English Department is accepting only applicants interested in working in and with Black Studies. We understand Black Studies to be a capacious intellectual project that spans a variety of methodological approaches, fields, geographical areas, languages, and time periods,” the university’s English Department website states.
The department’s Black Studies program works “in close collaboration with other departments to study African American, African, and African diaspora literature and media, as well as in the histories of political struggle, collective action, and protest that Black, Indigenous and other racialized peoples have pursued, both here in the United States and in solidarity with international movements.”
The program boasts a “commitment” not just to “ideas in the abstract,” but also to more concrete action in the form of “activating histories of engaged art, debate, struggle, collective action, and counterrevolution as contexts for the emergence of ideas and narratives.”
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There are few enough career tracks for people with graduate degrees in English and now these people want to further limit the value of the degree by studying “…the histories of political struggle, collective action, and protest that Black, Indigenous and other racialized peoples have pursued, both here in the United States and in solidarity with international movements.” What does that even mean? At first glance, it looks like they’re going to study ways to create better socialist/communist propaganda.
Whatever happened to colleges preparing students to be productive members of society instead of self-centered malcontents?
Whatever happened to colleges preparing students to be productive members of society instead of self-centered malcontents?
We might also ask, whatever happened to ars gratia artis in the humanities? Must everything be put to work furthering the leftist revolution?
Even the idea that the purpose of education is to prepare students to be “productive members of society” is a progressive idea that we got from Dewey.
Personally, I’d rather we give up the idea that everyone should or needs to go to college. Enrollment in humanities courses should not be subsidized by the government, but instead be limited to those who truly feeling a calling in those areas, who are willing to pay their own way in pursuing them, and who should have no expectation of a lucrative career as a result.
The simple solution there is to pull accreditation for “the humanities”.
No accreditation , no federal student loans, problem solved.
“… it looks like they’re going to study ways to create better socialist/communist propaganda. …”
I’d say that’s exactly the goal of much of University instruction is these days. And instilling love for the State.
I never thought such a thing would happen at UofC, which has held to the Western canon for so long in its undergraduate core. Oh well.
The English Department used to be home to a murderer’s row of English Renaissance scholars, all of whom by now are dead or retired — Bevington (deceased about this time last year), Murrin, Mueller, Strier, Scodel. That’s why a lot of students went there, to follow that passion. But now?
Really sorry to hear this.
Now they’ll be living off that reputation for a while.
—”Must everything be put to work furthering the leftist revolution?”
Yes, that is exactly what they want. They are monomaniacs, who value nothing except the destruction of our society. It is remarkable to watch the middle-aged academics who now embrace this barbarian teaching. And at the U. of Chicago, no less!
I’d say it’s mainly posturing they’re doing here, these all self-important “scholars.”
Shameful.
But UofC started going downhill once they adopted the Common App for The College.
I believe for undergrad admission, in place of the essay they want you to do a video.
Then they can get a good idea of whether you’re an authentic SJW. In its favor, it’s harder to fudge that than having someone else write your essays.
A video? You’re joking, right?
Will there be Ebonics translators available? Proof that defining deviancy downward is still happening.
In just a couple short decades, U of C goes from Intellectual to non-Intellectual to anti-Intellectual. Impressive.
Blatant RACISM! Cut all Federal funding NOW! Let them get their money from their PRC Masters and BLM!
It will be interesting to follow this cohort of grad students. My guess is they will set a record for underachievement.