Currently academics debate whether they should be “sages on the stage” or “guides on the side.” It never occurs to them that they might not be very good in either role.
For example, it is easier to find good commercial histories in book stores than adequate ones in classrooms. Perhaps this results from the scholarly obsession with the esoteric, provided it supports politically correct notions in academe, on full display in Cornell’s course catalogue:
- Witchcraft in the Early Modern Atlantic World
- Monstrous Births, Scheming Midwives: Childbirth in Europe, from 1500 to 1700
- Deviants, Outcasts, and Others
- East Asian Martial Arts
- American Political Thought from Madison to Malcolm X
- Origins of the Social
- The White Image in the Black Mind
- The History of the U.S. prison
- History of Things
- Ghosts and Legacies: The Construction of Public Memory
- Europes Asia: Modern European Discourse on History and Subjectivity
- Living in an Uncertain World: Science, Technology, and Risk
- America’s Multicultural Origins to 1754
- Sports History in the United States
- Asian American Women’s History
- Marriage and Sexuality in Medieval Europe
- Comparative Environmental History
- Gender and Sexuality in Southeast Asia
- Science, Race, and Colonialism
- Marriage and Divorce in Africa
- Race and the University
- Love and Sex in the Italian Renaissance
- Science, Race, and Colonialism
- Gender, Power, and Authority in England, 1600 to 1800
- The History of Pre-Industrial Noise in Europe, 1400-1800
- Readings in Cultural Materialism: Theory and Practice
- Gender and Sexuality in Southeast Asia
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.
