A sampling of what Harvard people are saying, and what others are saying about Harvard, in the press.

Harvard Debased?

In its recent year-end issue, The Economist published an article titled "Modern English Debased," citing examples of incomprehensible jargon used in worlds of government, air travel, religion and, of course, academia:

You may dismiss such stuff as the polysallabic effusions of woolly minds..But do not imagine that things are necessarily better among the elite. This is from the 1974-75 Harvard course catalogue: 'Afro-American Studies 95a..Black identity presented as a mental health model with therapeutic reactions to the ecology of white racism. Afro-American Studies 95b... Externalizing-internalizing dimensions of personality structure and behavior receive special attention...' Martin Luther King might have found a sharper way of putting it.

Let the Hot Air Blow

It seems like January was open season on Harvard course-offerings, both past and present. In a piece titled. "Mea Culpa" in The New Republic's special issue dealing with race on campus, Richard Blow, a doctoral candidate in the History of American civilization at Harvard, joins the whining chorus of dissent against Harvard's allegedly illegitimate "PC" course offerings. Here, he lets loose on a course offered by Shakespeare-guru Marjorie Garber:

It's not easy to retain intellectual integrity when only certain thoughts are considered acceptable. In a dinner conversation recently, I expressed doubt about the need for an English department seminar called "Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety." ("A theoretical consideration of transvestism in literature, history, film, and popular culture from Shakespeare to Peter Pan...") Oops. Turns out I offended a gay man who had written extensively on the subject.

You know, Richard, once you start studying Shakespeare, intellectual integrity is the next to go.

Speaking of Cross Dressing

Last Sunday, the New York Times Magazine ran a piece on the annual convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA), and compiled a list of "What's Hot and What's Not," according to MLA members "informally polled in hallways, on escalators and at cash bars." Some results:

In: Afro-Atlantic syncretic narrative.

Out: Textual editing

In: Hemingway as adrogyne.

Out: Hemingway as male chauvanist.

In: Cross dressing.

Out: Elbow Patches

In: Columbia.

Out: Harvard.