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Friday, April 02, 2004

SYLLABUM OMNIUM REDUX

"A colleague in Religion recently revealed in a discussion of the increasingly thick boilerplate we are encouraged to apply to our syllabi," writes Jonathan Dresner in a comment at the website History News Network, "that he's been adding an 'offensive material disclaimer' to his, to the effect that 'some of the material we discuss and views we express might be offensive to people with strongly held beliefs.'"

This disclaimer is the latest dollop to be spooned into the already morbidly obese Syllabum Omnium (see UD post of January 14; and for UD's take on the thriving personal offense industry in American academia, see UD post of January 23).

So voluminous and critical to one's career is the new Syllabum Omnium that within five years, I predict, faculty will publish and earn tenure on the basis of what will be known as the syllabook. The Myth of Syllabus by Jean-Paul Camus...["There is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is the problem of the syllabus."]. Syllabus Shrugged by Ann Raynd, voted by college students most popular syllabook... A Syllabus Named Desire by Tennessee Ernie Ford...On the Syllabus by Nevyllabus Shute, a wrenching portrayal of the last syllabi to survive after a global nuclear holocaust...

In my own case, there's no real problem. I can avoid the offense disclaimer by removing from my Modern Novel course anything written by James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, Alberto Moravia, Michel Houellebecque, Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, Elias Canetti, Gunther Grass, Norman Mailer, and John Updike. Have I forgotten anyone?