{"id":2233085,"date":"2024-04-29T19:47:03","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T23:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/encampments-faculty-cheerleader-oversees-columbias-core-curriculum-in-humanities\/"},"modified":"2024-04-29T19:51:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T23:51:17","slug":"encampments-faculty-cheerleader-oversees-columbias-core-curriculum-in-humanities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/encampments-faculty-cheerleader-oversees-columbias-core-curriculum-in-humanities\/","title":{"rendered":"The Head Cheerleader of Encampment Guides Columbia&#8217;s Humanities Core"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fencampments-faculty-cheerleader-oversees-columbias-core-curriculum-in-humanities%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2233085&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Professor Joseph Howley, a vocal encampment supporter at Columbia University, is leading a review of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/at-this-manhattan-middle-school-school-sixth-graders-are-asked-to-surveil-friends-and-family-for-microaggressions\/\" title=\"At This Manhattan Middle School School, Sixth-Graders Are Asked To Surveil Friends and Family for \u2018Microaggressions\u2019\">humanities curriculum<\/a>. Howley&#8217;s influential role in shaping students&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/major-disparities-among-minority-children-in-illinois-report-says\/\" title=\"Report reveals significant disparities among minority children in Illinois\">intellectual horizons<\/a> through core courses \u2063like &#8220;Literature Humanities&#8221; raises questions about the \u200cuniversity&#8217;s\u200c evolving\u2063 curriculum. His actions and perspectives\u200c amidst the ongoing encampment emphasize the faculty&#8217;s impact on campus dynamics and\u2064 academic \u200ddiscourse.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<h2>Joseph Howley points the finger at \u201chegemonic Zionist far right\u201d for vilifying encampment <\/h2>\n<figure><figcaption> \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\tProfessor Joseph Howley (L) at Columbia&#8217;s encampment April 24, 2024. (Twitter\/@hashtagoras)\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>One of the most outspoken supporters of the encampment at Columbia University, classics professor Joseph Howley, is leading a review of the required humanities curriculum for all Columbia undergraduates.<\/p>\n<p>Since the encampment went up over a week ago, Howley has emerged as one of its most prominent champions, giving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@ajplus\/video\/7362246491181993262\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">interviews<\/a> from inside its perimeter and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtagoras\/status\/1784978675944792191\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">dismissing<\/a> the idea that the unsanctioned protest\u2014which has <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/student-protesters-denounce-antisemitism-amid-criticism-pro-palestinian\/story?id=109643275#:~:text=Several%20antisemitic%20incidents%20in%20or,University's%20campus%20on%20April%2020.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">included calls<\/a> to murder Jewish students and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JessicaCostescu\/status\/1784972338234118269\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">threats<\/a> that &#8220;Columbia will burn&#8221;\u2014poses a safety risk.<\/p>\n<p>He will bring that considered judgement to Columbia\u2019s famous &#8220;Literature Humanities&#8221; course, which Howley has chaired since 2022. Howley was scheduled to review the syllabus for that course, a survey of what the school deems important humanities texts, this term as part of Columbia\u2019s regular efforts to update its core curriculum, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20230326221649\/https:\/\/www.college.columbia.edu\/cct\/issue\/fall-2022\/article\/joseph-howley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2022 profile<\/a> in the university\u2019s alumni magazine.<\/p>\n<p>The review will give Howley tremendous power to shape the cultural and intellectual horizons of first<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/harvard-launching-app-to-help-students-find-inclusive-bathrooms\/\" title=\"Harvard Launching App to Help Students Find Inclusive Bathrooms\">-year students<\/a>. And according to the profile, he\u2019s excited to exercise it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel like preparing for that next syllabus review started on Day One for me,&#8221; Howley told the magazine. &#8220;These reviews are a regular opportunity to make sure this class is current, that it\u2019s living up to its goals and to our ideals and values.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Howley and Columbia did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>As the encampment drags on and images of student radicalism flood the airwaves, there has been mounting speculation about where, exactly, the radicals got their ideas. Part of the answer seems to be Columbia\u2019s core curriculum, comprised of Literature Humanities and four other mandatory courses, which has been shedding the classics for years in an effort to accommodate newer, less eurocentric texts.<\/p>\n<p>Once rooted squarely in the Western canon, Literature Humanities now assigns a 2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Citizen-American-Lyric-Claudia-Rankine\/dp\/1555976905\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">book<\/a> about &#8220;racial aggressions&#8221; by Claudia Rankine and a 2001 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Notebook-Return-Native-Wesleyan-Poetry\/dp\/0819564524\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">work<\/a> of &#8220;post-colonial&#8221; poetry by Aim\u00e9 C\u00e9saire. Contemporary Civilization, another core class, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.college.columbia.edu\/core-curriculum\/classes\/contemporary-civilization\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">includes<\/a> units on &#8220;anticolonialism,&#8221; &#8220;race, gender, and sexuality,&#8221; and even climate change, requiring students to read an essay on &#8220;indigenous peoples and climate injustice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The new additions have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/web-exclusives\/2022\/02\/columbias-crumbling-core\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">squeezed out<\/a> Sophocles, Herodotus, and Milton and led to accusations that Columbia\u2014long considered a bastion of the Great Books\u2014has traded its liberal arts heritage for a new progressive orthodoxy. Though the core still includes staples like Plato and Virgil, its treatment of the recent past has been more one-sided, laser-focused on the sins of the West.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To understand the world before 1900, Columbia students read a range of texts and authors that are important to understanding America and the West in their entirety,&#8221; the <i>New York Times <\/i>columnist Ross Douthat wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/27\/opinion\/columbia-university-protests.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">column<\/a> this week. &#8220;To engage with the contemporary world, the world they are being prepared to influence and lead, they read texts that are important to understanding only the perspective of the contemporary left.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Howley\u2019s role as humanities czar suggests this imbalance will outlive the protest he\u2019s championed. It also underscores the role that faculty have played in prolonging the encampment, in part by physically blocking attempts to clear it.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of professors formed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsnationnow.com\/video\/columbia-protesters-defy-deadline-faculty-create-human-chain-around-group-newsnation-now\/9648586\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a human chain<\/a> around the protesters on Monday after Columbia president Minouche Shafik ordered them to disperse by 2:00 p.m. And over a hundred faculty members, including Howley, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.columbiaspectator.com\/news\/2024\/04\/23\/over-100-faculty-members-protest-in-rally-to-support-our-students-and-reclaim-our-university\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">excoriated<\/a> Shafik\u2019s decision to call the police on April 18 in an attempt to gain control of the situation.<\/p>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@ajplus\/video\/7362246491181993262\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">interview<\/a> with <em>Al Jazeera<\/em> this week, Howley also claimed that there was &#8220;no evidence&#8221; of anti-Semitism on Columbia\u2019s campus and that claims to the contrary had been weaponized by the &#8220;hegemonic Zionist far right&#8221;\u2014days after a student leader of the encampment, Khymani James, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/26\/nyregion\/columbia-student-protest-zionism.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">caught on camera<\/a> saying &#8220;Zionists don\u2019t deserve to live.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Other faculty supporting the encampment are likewise involved in the Columbia core. Manan Ahmed, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/u-k-education-secretary-prioritizing-emotional-safety-over-free-speech-is-dangerous\/\" title=\"U.K. Education Secretary: Prioritizing \u2018Emotional Safety\u2019 Over Free Speech Is \u2018Dangerous\u2019\">history professor<\/a> who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.columbiaspectator.com\/news\/2024\/04\/29\/unnecessary-escalation-of-turmoil-students-faculty-alumni-react-after-shafik-authorizes-nypd-sweep\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">negotiated<\/a> on behalf of the protesters when Columbia first tried to clear them out, teaches his section of &#8220;Contemporary Civilization&#8221; through a &#8220;decolonial lens,&#8221; according to an article in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.columbiaspectator.com\/the-eye\/2022\/02\/22\/a-location-of-possibility-and-the-practice-of-freedom-how-a-decolonial-contemporary-civilization-section-is-transforming-columbias-classroom-culture\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Columbia Spectator<\/i><\/a>  by a Barnard College student, Ashe Lewis, who cited Ahmed\u2019s section as &#8220;evidence that decolonial progress is being made at Columbia.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The idea is to &#8220;discuss foundational texts in a way that does not glorify white superiority,&#8221; Lewis wrote.\t<\/p>\n<p>Lewis, who uses he\/they pronouns as a student at the women\u2019s college, added that Ahmed\u2019s section was just the first step in decolonizing the curriculum.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Columbia has a long way to go,&#8221; Lewis wrote.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor Joseph Howley blames the &#8220;hegemonic Zionist far right&#8221; for defaming encampment. An advocate for encampment, he now leads a review of Columbia&#8217;s humanities curriculum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":184,"featured_media":2233086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/GL9u76_WkAAxfR9_736x515.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2233085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/GL9u76_WkAAxfR9_736x515.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2233085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2233086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2233085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2233085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2233085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}