Wednesday, March 12, 2014

I'm Going Back to School



It's California, but still:
SANTA BARBARA – A department of feminist studies professor has been accused of going berserk after coming across a campus prolife demonstration that used extremely graphic displays, leading a small mob of students to chant “tear down the sign” before grabbing one of the signs, storming off with it, then allegedly engaging in an altercation with a 16-year-old prolife protestor who had followed the educator to retrieve it. 

Much of the scuffle was recorded on a smartphone by the 16-year-old, Thrin Short. The yet-to-be-released video is now in the custody of Santa Barbara law enforcement officials, who are investigating the March 4 incident.
The professor at the heart of the controversy is Mireille Miller-Young, an associate professor whose area of emphasis is black cultural studies, pornography and sex work, according to her faculty webpage. She could not be reached for comment Tuesday by The College Fix.
Now I'm no fan of those gore pictures used in abortion protests, though I know there are arguments in favor of their use. I think it's possible to make people understand what abortion is without actually showing it.

Still, a 16 year old shouldn't have to rumble with a sex professor over it. So who is this professor and what does she do when she's not tussling with children? Well, according to the faculty webpage:
Areas of Study:
Pornography; Sex Work; Black Film, Popular Culture and Art; Feminist & Queer Theory; African American & African Diaspora Studies; Visual Archives; New Media; Ethnography; Oral History

Education:
PhD. New York University (American History and History of the African Dispora
M.A. New York University (American History and History of the African Dispora)
B.A. Emory University (History)
Dissertation: "A Taste for Brown Sugar: The History of Black Women in American Pornography."

Biography:
Mireille Miller-Young, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research explores race, gender and sexuality in visual culture and sex industries in the United States. Her manuscript, A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women, Sex Work and Pornography (forthcoming from Duke University Press in 2014) examines African American women’s representation and labor in pornographic media.

That's right, you can get a PhD in history for "A Taste for Brown Sugar: The History of Black Women in American Pornography." Does that make you proud to be an American or what? How can our economy be struggling when we've got this kind of depth in education?

So, like we're in a real life Independence Day and the president has called in our best and brightest to figure out how to fight the aliens. The chemists, electrical engineers, and nuclear physicists are all stumped, so the president turns to Dr Miller-Young who offers, "Maybe we could tie them to a washing machine like in After School Booty II."

Cause I'll guarantee you, the aliens won't be expecting it. 


5 comments:

Veeshir said...

I'd love to see the vid, I bet a dollar she was calling the kid a Nazi, fascist or Brownshirt as she attacked.

That kind of thing makes me laugh.

And cringe, but still....

Wry Mouth said...

That curriculum vitae should make a person blush. But it won't. Too late for that.

Fun fact: my wife (who is a very fine Christian and psychologist of note) pioneered racism/porn studies under the tutelage of her professors at (unnamed college).

So, there's always hope that this is just a phase she is going through.

Rumbear said...

Oh, you owe it to yourself to go and read her dissertation. Be amazed at what passes as "scholarly work".

"Employing my training in feminist methodological approaches to ethnography, oral history,
textual analysis, and archival research, my project recuperates the historical performances,
labors and voices of black women in a stigmatized subculture and shows how their lives are
actually at the center to a larger story of American media and sexual culture."

What a pantload....

lumberjack said...

Dissertation defended with a broken beer bottle and: "you want some of THIS?! you want some of THIS?! Oh, it's ON now!"

Anonymous said...

I'm just guessing that anyone who has ever studied under her is qualified for absolutely nothing.

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