CrimsonPhantom
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'Ecofeminism,' 'Community Activism' and 'Queer Desires'
Quote:School is a place where students should learn not what to think, but how.
Hence, philosophy is an excellent addition to academic basics.
As for college, many would insist the four-to-six-year foray should train young adults for a career.
Yet, it appears that over the last decade or two, secondary education has flirted with favoring philosophy over real-world prep.
Apropos of that — per Campus Reform — here’s a round-up of upcoming collegiate courses nationwide.
At California’s Humboldt State University, they’ll soon be studying Community Activism.
The class will cover “organizational and activist skills” via “hands-on projects.”
Such comes courtesy of the school’s Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
To the northeast, autumn attendees of the University of Wisconsin will get a taste of Queer Bodies.
From the official description:
Examines both physiological and social processes relating to gender and health across the lifespan among cisgender, transgender, and non-binary individuals. Examples of topics include hormonal processes, reproductive anatomy physiology, sexuality, sexual pleasure, chronic illness, depression, and sexual violence. A primary course objective is for students to connect information about their bodies and personal health to larger social and political contexts.
Also available: What happens when you mix queer sexuality and feminist theory, sprinkle some racial review with a dash of ecology thrown in? That’d be Queering Ecofeminism and Environmental Racism.
It’s quite the complex cocktail:
This course brings environmental studies and critical race theory perspectives to bear on gender and sexuality studies, taking “eco-feminism” as an identity, an object of analysis, and as a methodological approach. It engages social science and historical texts, films, short videos and poetry to give an introduction to ecofeminism, queer and transecologies, and connections with critical race theory and indigenous studies.
At the University of Washington, they’re keeping it simple. Students will get turned on to getting turned on with Queer Desires:
(GWSS 464) explores desire and the politics of sexuality as gendered, raced, classed, and transnational processes.
And if you’re more into feelings than getting felt, Campus Reform claims Portland State University will serve up instruction on Queer Feelings.
No other information is available.
Social justice and progressive identity certainly seem to have gotten an educational boost as of late.
As I covered last month, the Pennsylvania State University teacher of a Race and Ethnic Relations course told a white student if he was breathing and left the house that day, he “may have oppressed somebody.”
In March, a Kentucky college’s Women’s and Gender Non-Conforming Center hosted a “gender talk” focused on “White Citizenship as Terrorism: Make America Great Again, Again.”
And at Cornell University, a rock-climbing course was originally offered to only BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People Of Color) participants.
In addition:
If you’re female and would love to tout those moves, you might be interested in James Madison University’s 2021-22 odyssey Feminist Blogging.
Of course, college has long had auxiliary offerings.
I once took a class on badminton.
I loved that class.
Doubtlessly, Queering Ecofeminism is more stimulating.
As universities turn more toward fixing the world’s problems, hopefully they’ll still make time for math, science, business, and other things that might practically qualify graduates for an actual job.
And if not, I suppose, those alumni can always score a position teaching the classes that gave them no other option.
More power to ’em — I’d gladly teach Badminton.
Or, The Racist Underpinnings of EcoRacquetSports.
Link
Also:
University Hires Social Justice Center to Help Top Staff Embrace 'White Inferiority'
Quote:If full is the antidote to empty and light is the remedy to dark, what’s the solution to white supremacy?
Leaders at the University of Kentucky may have come upon a fix.
As reported by Young America’s Foundation, U of K recently hosted an antiracism workshop.
The aim: to focus department heads on diversity, equity and inclusion.
To that end, the school purportedly forked out $5,000 to the Center for Healing Racial Trauma.
From the official website:
The Center for Healing Racial Trauma is dedicated to using love, liberation, equity, and creativity informed therapeutic interventions to help racially/ethnically marginalized people heal from racism.
Core Values:
Love
Liberty
Creativity
Equity
The Center is directed by Candice Hargons, who’s also a UK assistant professor in the Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology.
The five-grand foray included a four-hour “introductory workshop” plus a two-hour “intermediate workshop,” initially totaling $8,000 and $2,000, respectively.
Fortunately for the school, it was granted 50% off.
The seminar — “Cultivating an Antiracist Mindset for Academic Administrators” — asked attendees to write down their “chosen metric for antiracism,” steps they’ve already taken, and to whom they choose to be accountable.
According to documents obtained by YAF, UK Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Eric N. Monday selected as his metric “increase # of BIPOC M/F staff.”
His stated goal: They should be at a “compensation of $50,000 or greater.”
Additionally:
“[I’ve] created a BIPOC recruitment fund of $250,000 per year for [the] next two years.”
Another administrator vowed, “I will also add a diversity, equity, and inclusion element into all merit reviews for faculty.”
Perhaps the most striking part of the workshop was how it proposed to counter white privilege.
The Center urged top faculty thusly:
REPLACE WHITE SUPREMACY
With the more accurate White inferiority complex language and know it organizes most systems in the USA.
J. David Rosenberg College of Law Dean Mary Davis admitted it was “really hard” to “force [herself] to accept white inferiority.”
Presumably, she’ll have plenty of time to practice.
Back to Candice, YAF reached out to UK concerning the ethics of hiring a faculty member’s private company.
The university declined to comment, but its reasoning might’ve related to an impressive resume.
In addition to her aforementioned credits, Candice directs the RISE^2 Research Team.
DrCandiceNicole.com lays out the group’s people prowess:
The new RISE^2 Research Team has a two-fold focus. We study Relationships, Intimacy, + Sexual Enrichment and Race, Intersectionality, + Social justice Engagement.
This year we have a few projects in progress:
The Big Sex Study
Black Lives Metta: Healing Racial Trauma Through Meditation
How to Love a Human
The accomplished writer’s also been published by the American Psychological Association.
Past essays:
Superwoman Schema: A Context for Understanding Psychological Distress Among Middle-Class African American Women Who Perceive Racial Microaggressions
Critical Consciousness of Anti-black Racism: a Practical Model to Prevent and Resist Racial Trauma
“It’s Happiness and Relief and Release”: Exploring Masturbation Among Bisexual and Queer Women
Quite an impressive array of accomplishments.
And now, thanks to Candice’s Center, at the center of the University of Kentucky, more diversity, equity and inclusion may abound.
Additionally responsible for the upgrade: social justice, antiracism, and — maybe most of all — white inferiority.
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[NEWS] 'Ecofeminism,' 'Community Activism' and 'Queer Desires'
