Art and Culture – The College Fix

The ‘OK, boomer’ arrogance strikes again

Dave Huber - Associate Editor — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 16:21:31 +0000

Four years ago I took issue with the phrase “OK, boomer,” and the resulting feedback is the most I’ve ever gotten regarding a column to date. The Fix comments alone numbered almost 600, and there were many responses on social media — mostly unfavorable. Of the negative reactions, the one with the most merit was how discipline and behavior have deteriorated over the decades. Indeed…

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Binghamton U. lecturer: ‘Wonka’ implicitly racist, has ‘remnants’ of book’s past racism

Dave Huber - Associate Editor — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 14:54:48 +0000

A lecturer at New York State’s Binghamton University says the new film “Wonka” has racist “remnants of the novel’s past” and complains the main black character “takes a back seat” to the protagonist. Meisha Lohmann, a self-described “specialist in decoding hidden meaning and dark realities” in kids’ books, writes in The Conversation that several years back she found a 1964 edition of Roald Dahl’…

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Music education ‘remains inherently racist,’ scholars say

Benjamin Rothove - University of Wisconsin Madison — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 05:05:55 +0000

‘Anti-racist war machines’ needed Music education programs in the United States “serve a White-normative, Eurocentric model,” and the admissions process for those programs “remains inherently racist,” according to a recent academic paper. The paper, titled “Disrupting Racism in Music Education: Conceptualizing Admissions Processes Through the State and the War Machine,” was authored by Erika…

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U. Chicago pro-Palestinian group condemns removal of its ’emergency art build’

Dave Huber - Associate Editor — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 23:50:02 +0000

‘A deeply disturbing act of disrespect against the martyrs in Palestine’ Members of a University of Chicago pro-Palestinian group are angry at school officials over the removal of their policy-violating “emergency art build.” UChicago United for Palestine assembled the art structure on Wednesday at the school’s main quad, but the official Student Manual states any such construction must be…

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Museum collections ‘deeply entrenched’ in violence, colonialism, professor says

Micaiah Bilger - Assistant Editor — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 05:45:02 +0000

Lafayette course explores how ‘imperialism,’ ‘looting’ shaped museums Lafayette College students are being taught that modern museums are instruments of “power,” entrenched in “violence” and colonialism, according to a new anthropology course offered this fall. Professor Monica Salas Landa, who teaches the “Museum Studies: History, Theory, and Debates” class at the private Pennsylvania…

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Moms arrange playdates for their college kids on Facebook, WhatsApp: report

Jennifer Kabbany - Fix Editor — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 05:42:33 +0000

Some moms are taking helicopter parenting to a whole new level. A new report in New York magazine describes how some moms arrange playdates for their college kids on social media apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp. It’s a trend that’s an outgrowth of groups created for parents of students at various universities: “Some groups are schoolwide, while others are specific to a cohort — graduating…

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College play about gay interracial love affair canceled after outrage: ‘romanticizes slavery’

Dave Huber - Associate Editor — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 00:05:56 +0000

Another conundrum in the ever-expanding realm of intersectionality A play about interracial gay love at California’s Santa Monica College faced major blowback — allegations that the story “romanticizes slavery.” “By the River Rivanna” by G. Bruce Smith takes place in 1850 and centers on a (white) slave owner and (black) slave who “hide a secret love affair,” The Los Angeles Times reports.

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Vampires are a ‘queer icon,’ scholars argue in new book

Matt Lamb - Associate Editor — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 12:04:18 +0000

‘The Vampire is the undead monarch of subtextual articulations of Otherness.’ Vampires are a “queer icon,” according to a collection of essays compiled by gender studies scholars. “Queering the Vampire Narrative offers classroom-ready original essays that continue our explorations of vampires as representations of the cultural Other, which builds on the work of our previous texts…

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Now a CLOWN is considered an offensive Halloween costume … ?

Dave Huber - Associate Editor — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 10:33:00 +0000

Hey, guess what? Halloween is on Tuesday. If you’ve been reading The College Fix for a while, you know this holiday doesn’t mix very well with modern college campuses. We know that dressing up as a member of an historically marginalized group is the no-no, as is anything remotely associated with the Confederacy, an inventive “Trump wall” costume, and even a “sexy” Mr. Rogers outfit.

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Emory U. puts on play about whiteness as a ‘paranoid structure’

Dave Huber - Associate Editor — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 07:33:08 +0000

‘Whenever you put white people in the title of a play, people get tense, right?’ Emory University’s Tarbutton Performing Arts Center recently featured the play “Snowflakes, or Rare White People,” which according to its professor/director is an examination of whiteness as a “paranoid structure.” The play takes place in 23rd century “Nueva New York” where white people are a federally “protected…

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