22 February 2009
CNN reports that US State Representatives Charlice Byrd and Calvin Hill (R-Georgia), supported by the Christian Coalition, have demanded that university courses teaching queer theory, sexuality, and similar subjects should be cut and the lecturers fired. They are outraged on moral grounds and state that such courses are a waste of taxpayer’s money.
Byrd seems genuinely surprised that something like queer theory could be taught at university. And her tone implies that she assumes the nation will agree with her.
An open letter on academic freedom has criticised their demands. The signators:
support our colleagues and appreciate the freedom to share knowledge, and we encourage everyone who shares these sentiments to sign our online petition and/or join our Facebook group.
22 February 2009
Two books I’ve just put on my wishlist:
1. William F. Pinar (Ed) (2000) Queer Theory in Education. Lawrence Erlbaum
2. Nelson M. Rodriguez and William F. Pinar (Eds) (2008) Queering Straight Teachers. Peter Lang
The first is apparently “a passionate, challenging and academically stretching collection of essays that both re-appropriate the term queer and question the whole process of normalisation in education”. The second promises to shift the focus “from an analysis of the GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] «Other» to a critical examination of what it might mean, in theory and in practice, to queer straight teachers, and the implications this has for challenging institutionalized heteronormativity in education”.
One reviewer writes that:
[T]he promise of queer theory for education rests in its potential to open up dialogue among persons from many divergent subjective positions, enabling them to explore the possibilities of coalitional politics and networks of solidarity that could transcend our codified patterns of interest-group politics.