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“Queer Childhoods” and “Gender and Sexuality” are among the classes English students can take this semester at the University of Central Arkansas. The courses have drawn criticism from education experts who question the value of such topics.
Professor Christine Case is offering an “interdisciplinary writing” course focused on “queer childhoods” twice this semester. The university’s course description only lists the generic information for the writing course.
Case has previously described herself as a “queer disabled poet PhD writing about fairy tales and sing-alongs, ocean critters and lava flows” in a book she wrote. Her doctorate is in “critical and cultural studies” from the University of Pittsburgh.
She wrote her doctoral dissertation on “race, gender, and dis/ability” in fairy tales. “Influenced by queer of color critique and contemporary girlhood studies, this research centers interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches to performance, race, gender, and popular culture, particularly in US contexts,” the professor wrote.
Case has not responded to an emailed inquiry asking for more information about the course in the past month.
“Gender and Language,” taught by another professor, provides “an overview of the sociolinguistics of language and its relationships to gender,” according to a course description. “The course develops awareness of language as a system of rules, codes, and prescribed attitudes to gender roles.”
The English department Chair Ty Hawkins did not respond via email or phone for comment on the courses in the past month.
However, several education experts criticized the classes.
The classes are “dubious ways to tackle great literature” and there are “many richer, more rigorous, and more constructive requirements” for the university to offer for an English major,” Frederick Hess told The Fix via email. He is the senior fellow and director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
Hess said University of Central Arkansas should focus on hiring faculty with “less esoteric interests” and focus on more “fundamental topics of literature and the world’s literary canon.”
A policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation added further criticism of the English department.
Madison Doan said courses like “Gender and Sexuality,” while broadening a student’s learning in diversity, risk “displacing engagements with foundational literary texts if not balanced by canonical study.” She is a co-author of a recent book that reviews the core curriculum requirements at Ivy League universities.
Doan referred to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and the Manhattan Institute, who have reported that many English programs have removed or deemphasized good literature. For example, fewer than eight percent of the nation’s top universities require English majors to take classes on Shakespeare.
Doan said the English department should ensure that students study the “greatest voices of the literary tradition,” like Beowulf, Geoffrey Chaucer, Anne Bradstreet, and Phillis Wheatley.
There must be “a balance between thematic and canonical study that preserves both intellectual depth and cultural breadth,” Doan said.
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