Word: douthat
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...whisper about your prof behind his back, bash her anonymously on a blog, but you have to admit it takes balls to attach your name to an article slamming him in a national publication. Ross Douthat ’02 calls out specific Harvard professors in “The Truth About Harvard,” an article in the March Atlantic Monthly that zeroes in on Harvard’s Core courses as inconsequential, calling them “maddeningly specific and often defiantly obscure...
...Douthat may state that “Understanding Islam” is “parochial” for examining “Muslim-animistic syncretism in Africa” but not the Koran or “the rise of radical Islam.” But Professor of the Practice of Indo-Muslim Languages and Cultures Ali S. Asani finds Douthat’s mind just a tad narrow...
...history department may be on a “retreat into irrelevance,” but at least it knows how to fact-check. Folger Fund Professor of History Andrew Gordon, chair of the History Department, notes that Douthat forgot one important detail when complaining that there were no history classes on the American Revolution during his undergraduate years: there...
Perhaps there has been a move in the American university system away from fact-based learning—and perhaps Douthat is right that this trend is not a positive one. He may even make an argument for increased control over grades or more direction for confused undergraduates faced with a massive course catalog and no idea where to start. But these flaws are pervasive, not unique to Harvard, and tossing in the Harvard name to attract attention is cheap journalism...
...Douthat never points to a better model. He never suggests that Harvard is being held to an existing standard and has been found wanting. Instead, he chooses to follow in the steps of so many before him and demand that Harvard, and its slothful students, isnot living up to some ever-elusive ideal. Based on his past performance, we rather expected better...