Among the topics discussed by students in Professor Mark Driscoll’s class are Donald Trump’s racism and “interracial hookups on campus.”
According to the syllabus obtained by Campus Reform, the course covers the concept of race since the 19th century, but it also provides revisionist narratives of American history, particularly the second world war.
It describes WWII’s Pacific theater fight as “the first global attack on white Anglo-American hegemony” and “Japan’s attempt to roll back Euro-American colonialism.”
One of the course’s required text is Theodore Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race, vol. 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America.”
Driscoll, an adjunct instructor in Global Studies, says in the syllabus’s “Methods” section that he cannot “emphasize enough” the “partial and incomplete nature of professorial knowledge,” and that students have a “right and duty” to seek out “alternate truths.”.
“Alternate Truths?” I would have thought “Alternate Viewpoints” might be what a college should be teaching.
There will also be readings from Ibram X. Kendi in Introduction to Racial Science, “Enlightenment or Enwhitenment?”, “Criminalization of Blackness” and “Whiteness Dispossessed (Whiteness After Obama).”
According to a syllabus previously reviewed by Campus Reform, an earlier version of the course, taught in 2019, included a class session titled “Nasty, Angry White People.”
Students in the course will be required to give a presentation based on any one of 32 listed topics.
And topics on which students can do presentations include:
— “How is Trump racist?”
— “Black/white hooking up at UNC”
— “White/Asian hooking up at UNC.”
— “White Trash”
— “Whites in Hip-hop”
— “Should white people pay reparations for slavery?”
— “War on Terror (and racialization of Muslims)”
— “Killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri”
— “1619 Project”
In his faculty page, Driscoll notes he “explores colonially influenced transformations in political and economic organization, philosophy, psychology, and literature, with a focus on gender, sexuality, and ethnicity to situate Japan’s rise to power.”
“I want all of you to feel safe to express yourself regardless of your point of view, background, physiological makeup or the general popularity or mass media appeal of your stance … you have a right and a duty to find out alternative truths about the themes that we will discuss. Moreover, we need to pledge to each other (this includes me to you) complete respect for each others’ viewpoints AND the willingness to tell each other when a comment or incident makes us uncomfortable.” (emphasis mine)
Seems those last two pledges are somewhat contradictory; wonder which one he will hold in higher accord?
Students in the course will be required to give a presentation based on any one of 32 listed topics.
And topics on which students can do presentations include:
— “How is Trump racist?”
— “Black/white hooking up at UNC”
— “White/Asian hooking up at UNC.”
— “White Trash”
— “Whites in Hip-hop”
— “Should white people pay reparations for slavery?”
— “War on Terror (and racialization of Muslims)”
— “Killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri”
— “1619 Project”
In his faculty page, Driscoll notes he “explores colonially influenced transformations in political and economic organization, philosophy, psychology, and literature, with a focus on gender, sexuality, and ethnicity to situate Japan’s rise to power.”
“I want all of you to feel safe to express yourself regardless of your point of view, background, physiological makeup or the general popularity or mass media appeal of your stance … you have a right and a duty to find out alternative truths about the themes that we will discuss. Moreover, we need to pledge to each other (this includes me to you) complete respect for each others’ viewpoints AND the willingness to tell each other when a comment or incident makes us uncomfortable.” (emphasis mine)
Seems those last two pledges are somewhat contradictory; wonder which one he will hold in higher accord?
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