Goldsmiths ends Queer History MA, to xomplaints

Agreed!

A market which may be facing significant shrinkage as the grift is exposed.

And let’s face it, if a candidate rocks up to an interview proudly waving their degree in Queer Theory or Transgender Archaeology (I just don’t have enough eye rolls for that one), they might as well be waving a red flag that says “I’m going to be a nightmare employee”.

I note that Goldsmiths proudly points to DEI jobs as the next step for many of its graduates.

And this is also the reason the rising number of qualifications such as Queer History, as the uselessness of what is being studied in practical terms is also a way of setting oneself apart from the wider population. These are qualifications in luxury beliefs and, through this, are designed to show that those who have studied them have intellectual refinement which sets them apart from the masses. It's the equivalent of upper class schooling in the Victorian period having a curriculum based entirely around the study of Latin and Greek.

The massive expansion in people getting first degrees seems to have opened up a lucrative market for the universities, as having a Master's is touted as being one way to stand out from the crowd. In reality it must favour the same demographic as used to dominate first degrees, viz, young people from affluent, confident families who were sent to good schools and supported in all sorts of ways to achieve the grades to get to university. An extra year or two to get a Master's is not an overwhelming barrier if you're not on the breadline.

Yes, and when I was at university it was actually hard to get accepted onto any postgraduate course whereas now, provided the qualification is useless, (i.e., you are not studying so you can operate on people or engineer bridges) if you stump up the money you can do it. Hence the proliferation of badly-educated activist-academics who have basically paid for their credentials. And, of course, faddy research and flashy conferences are what attract funding to departments so these are the people who get promoted.

Gah queer autocorrect typo!

Incase anyone missed it in the twitter thread, there was a great pictoral summary of Jenson's points about Queen theory here:

He did indeed.

I thought Jenson delivered a masterclass in trying to pursue respectful debate.

"same-sex sex and love"?

"same-sex"?

How very transphobic.

Oh no! Not ‘mean spirited’. Ladies, pipe down, you’re being howwid.

It is a valid historical subject, but not valid as a discrete MA course in and of itself. What gives history - and indeed any discipline - meaning is the interconnectivity between subjects and academic approaches, and a strength of an academic is normally measured in the breadth of that academic's understanding of a discipline. Reducing a course of study to "queer history" or "black history" or whatever is a disservice to the students studying the subject; a decent MA course of study will force the student to confront a variety of methodologies, approaches, subject matters, because that it an essential part of learning.

Bengry's a lecturer, not a professor- pretty junior. Redundancy in academia is a particularly horrible experience as there are no new jobs atm. And queer history encompasses the whole history of same-sex sex and love over centuries, with all its political significance : you may not be interested, or be put off by the term 'queer', but it's very much a valid historical subject. This is a mean-spirited thread.

That's the first time I've listened to that. That oh-so-polite TW was doing a lot of faffing around to say "woman" is an idea in a man's head. As for that woman shouting all the time about being "queer" and how Jensen "doesn't care about trans people's lives" - any money she's another spicy straight TRA.

😂😂

I used to think that too. However, many years of being freshly amazed on a daily basis in the study of gender hatstand have shown that each new day really is a school day. You have hand it to these nutters that they do come up with some absolute zingers that would never, ever have crossed the mind of anyone on planet earth.

Omigod -heard everything now 😔😔

These MAs (and similar tertiary qualifications) exist largely as marketing tools. Given that most under/postgraduate degrees in the humanities have a modular basis, an institution can offer specific modules on queer history / black history / Tartarian empire history, and a student can effectively design the focus of their own qualifications. There's no academic need to offer these as discrete degree courses, providing an institution is offering variety within a particular course of study.

But higher education is a business now, and marketing is important. Offering queer history / black history / Tartarian empire history gives a means by which courses can be publicised, and students drawn to an institution. If you can claim to be the only university offering a particular qualification, you can draw people in who might otherwise be tempted to study at other, better institutions. Of course, if no-one is interested in taking on a particular course, it doesn't have much of a reason for existence. Within a modular system you can maintain a skeleton course, but not if, as in this instance, the course leaders are being made redundant.

I think Goldsmiths is also home to Natacha/Mark Kennedy.

oh bless her heart 😀
nothing like the confidently incorrect is there?
see also - person I heard about who wanted spain to win the euros because ‘england was imperialist and colonial’. So they were backing SPAIN, that well-known historical bastion of anti-colonial, anti-imperialist sentiment 🤔

I agree about the value of extending the boundaries of knowledge. But everything I’ve read from queer studies has been unevidenced, speculative or just plain nonsensical.

This is the opposite of extending the boundaries of knowledge. It’s trying to crush reality into the bounds of an ideology.
It’s extending ignorance.

Really enjoyed this thread. Thanks, everyone! “vandalism” 🤣

There was a thread on MN recently about Mickey Mouse degrees…and I propose this one.

Bengry doesn’t seem particularly likeable but fwiw I do think it is important for research institutions to do things that society at large might think silly or preposterous. That, in one sense, is their mission - to extend the boundaries of knowledge.

Whether it is financially viable is a different question. Universities are in straightened times and a narrowing of the curriculum is an inevitable result given the reliance on international students and a domestic turn away from the humanities.