~Yale Arts Library Blog~

“Whether a monstrosity or a dishonest provocation, Shvarts’s ‘project’ was the reductio ad absurdum — or ad nauseam — of ideology and pedagogy that have been standard fare in the humanities at Yale and on many other campuses for years. Her supervisors — Yale’s fall guys — probably didn’t tell her no for the same reason that, in 2003, a New York University professor initially approved a student’s proposal to record two students having sex in front of the class. (The NYU administration later nixed it.)

“The politicized obsession with race, gender and sexuality; the denigration of canonical works by ‘dead white males’; the callow mocking of convention; the notion that truth itself is merely a construct of power and self-interest — all characterize the study of art and literature in America’s colleges and universities. All were reflected in Shvarts’s rationale for her ‘installation.’”

The Art of Folly at Yale By Charles Lane, May 3, 2008 Washington Post

Posted by: Tanya