<p>Ah, it’s good to see that this debate is still alive and well. The hand-wringing over the ‘development of truly broad and global thinking’ vs. ‘Balkanized Identity studies that serve a very narrow political end’ in American education (from primary school to grad school) has been raging for decades. This all brings back good memories of heated, alcohol-enhanced, late-night debates from my now distant grad school years.</p>
<p>It’s a legitimate debate, especially concerning the fate and meaning of the humanities in broader education. The best anti-identity politics salvo ever fired is still Arthur Schlesinger Jr’s short polemic ‘The Disuniting of America.’ He’s hardly a conservative crank (look him up if you don’t know who he is…and shame on you if you don’t). And, I always appreciated Ronald Takaki’s ‘A Different Mirror’ as the most salient counter-punch to Schelsinger’s deft body blow. At any rate, these are issues worth grappling with, and, more importantly, from a College Confidential standpoint, knowing how deeply a prospective institution has embraced one sort of intellectual construction of the humanities vs. another is very worthwhile information for a hopeful student.</p>
<p>Now, if they would only develop a ‘Middle Aged, Irish-American, New Jersey Suburb-Raised, New England Dwelling, Beer-Loving, Post-Academic Studies’ Curriculum I’d finally have an in-road to express my liminal political identity within the tyrannical episteme of American Academia.</p>