The Bard Meets Dilbert
by P.D. Lesko
AS COLLEGE STUDENTS look over lists of fall classes, this
much is clear: These aren’t your parents’ course catalogues.
Multicultural studies have grown. There also are more technology-related classes and courses exploring traditional subjects in nontraditional ways. We found these examples of unconventional offerings.
THE BARD MEETS DILBERT.
School: Columbia University Business School.
Name of course: “In Search of the Perfect Prince”
Description in course catalogue: “I [the instructor] believe one can learn more about leadership from reading Shakespeare’s plays than from reading most modern tomes on the subject. . . . We will identify, try to understand, and debate the issues that Shakespeare poses for us. We will apply what we have learned to better understand today’s world. Whom should we trust? Whom should we believe? Whom should we follow? And why? . . . “We will address leadership in the context of MBA entry positions, middle managers and entrepreneurs. Along the way, we will discuss and debate greed, arrogance, scotoma, inattention, hesitance, lust, ambition, lying, cheating and stealing. We will discuss why people are fired and kings are beheaded. We will learn why battles and customers are won and lost. We might even learn why some company stocks skyrocket and then plummet. Any serious Shakespeare scholar would have shorted Sunbeam stock long before it fell from 55 to 27.”
GENDER WARS OF YORE.
School: Smith College, Comparative Literature Department.
Name of course: “The Renaissance Gender Debate”
Description in course catalogue: “In ‘La Querelle des Femmes,’ medieval and Renaissance writers (1350-1650) took on misogynist ideas from the ancient world and early Christianity: woman as failed man, irrational animal, fallen Eve. Writers debated women’s sexuality (insatiable or purer then men’s?), marriage (the hell of nagging wives or the highest Christian state?), women’s souls (nonexistent or subtler than men’s?), female education (a waste of time or a social necessity?). “Brief study of the social and cultural changes fueling the polemic; analysis of the many literary forms it took, from Chaucer’s Wife of Bath to Shakespeare’s ‘Taming of the
Shrew,’ scholars’ dialogues, and pamphlets from the popular
press. Some attention to the battle of the sexes in the visual
arts.”
TALKING SOFAS.
School: Princeton University, English Department.
Name of course: “Special Studies in the 18th Century: The Things
Things Say”
Description in course catalogue: “The course will study the emergence of things in the 18th century as objects of interest in their own right. Things will include inert things, such as manufactures, commodities and pieces of money; but they will also include animals and birds, things that have the power of communication, and they will introduce the narratives told by things themselves, such as sofas, ostrich feathers, hackney coaches, atoms, guineas, and slaves. As well as texts, we shall spend some time studying pictures by Greuze, Gilpin, Wright of Derby, Hogarth and Stubbs, together with some Dutch still lives.”
CYBER-PSYCH 101.
School: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department
of Science, Technology and Society.
Name of course: “Technology and Identity: On the Internet”
Description in course catalogue: “Examines empirical and theoretical literature that illuminates how new technologies have historically changed our ideas about and experience of personal identity, particularly the experience of identity on the Internet and the social psychology of virtual communities. “Readings examine
traditional’ perspectives on identity and their challenges
in theories of decentered’ and multiple identity. Also included
are writings on postmodern identity theory, the idea of person-as-cyborg, artificial intelligence and its challenge to the vision of
the human self,’ and science fiction as it reflects notions
of human and machine identity.”
BEFORE ANN LANDERS.
School: University of Pennsylvania, English Writing Program.
Name of course: “Never appear in company without your
corset: 200 Years of Advice for Men and Women”
Description in course catalogue: “In Dr. Gregory’s wildly popular
conduct manual of 1774, he told his daughters, ‘If you happen
to have any learning, keep it a profound secret, especially from the men.’ This course is concerned with this and other helpful tips from male and female authors of the 18th-century. From improving dialogues with the dead and memoirs of fallen women, to dying mothers’ advice to their children, we’ll be finding the answers to such tricky problems as the perils of drinking tea, methods for maintaining chastity, the way to behave at balls, and how to deal with your illegitimate children. “Course reading covers a wide range of selections from etiquette guides, conduct manuals, courtesy books, and behavioral blueprints written for men, women, boys and girls from 1670 to 1830. . . . We’ll be looking at the ways in which such books inculcated, described, and idealized changing notions of gender, class and nationality. The final section will cover
some 20th-century manifestations of the conduct manual, such
as Emily Post’s Etiquette and The Rules.”
CRUSADING MINDS.
School: Antioch College, Peace Studies Department.
Name of course: “Lives of Commitment in a Complex World”
Description in course catalogue: “How do people develop
commitments to winning victories for humanity? How do people
who work on behalf of peace and justice, on behalf of the
environment, who are agents of social change, sustain themselves
in an increasingly complex world and in the face of persistent
obstacles and growing cynicism? “This course explores these and related questions by applying a variety of social, psychological and political lenses to cases and biographies from a range of cultural contexts. Some key topics include: the concept of the common good in a diverse and complex world; the role of cross-cultural awareness, development of responsible imagination . . . .”
