July’s “Hatemonger’s Qurarterly” Academic of

July’s “Hatemonger’s Qurarterly” Academic of the Month

After all, heading to the office at least twice a week isn’t an easy gig, and it’s well past time that someone touts our under-funded university pedants. We averred that we were ready for a little touting.

Accordingly, dear reader, we are always on the lookout for an academic who deserves our copious praise. A reader who preferred to remain nameless—but who actually possesses a name—sent us word about a scintillating teacher at the University of Texas at Austin who thoroughly deserves our July, 2005 Academic of the Month Award.

The academic in question, one Dana L. Cloud, is an associate professor at the Department of Communication Studies at UT. (Does anyone else think that “Department of Communication Studies” is a bit of a clunky moniker for a passel of experts in communications?) Her delightful homepage helpfully displays what an even-keeled character she must be in the classroom.

According to her charming “website,” Ms. Cloud “happily attended public schools where she was one of only a few white native speakers of English.” Well, bully for her. It’s nice to see Ms. Cloud brag about her radical bona fides. We collectively wonder if she would have mentioned that she “happily attended private schools at which she was one of many white native speakers of English.” Does an absence of white people mean a good education? An intriguing question, isn’t it?

Ms. Cloud’s “webpage” also informs us that she is a deeply serious scholar, who is undoubtedly a fair-minded critic. After all, in her graduate studies, “she concentrated in the areas of the criticism of racism and sexism in popular culture, Marxist and feminist social theory, and ideology critique.” We’re sure that such an ivory tower intellectual would never use her classroom as a bully pulpit.

What’s more, Ms. Cloud’s homepage also tells us that “In her spare time, Professor Cloud enjoys agitating for social change.” Why only in her spare time? Come on, Ms. Cloud: Get with the program! Your entire career—all three hours a week in your tony office—should be spent “agitating for social change.” How else are you going to put unsuspecting undergraduates off of the life of the mind?

And then there’s the matter of Ms. Cloud’s impressive publications. We don’t mean to make anyone jealous, but a forthcoming issue of Critical Cultural Communications Studies will feature her learned contribution entitled “The Matrix and Critical Theory’s Desertion of the Real.” We collectively can’t wait.

Even more impressively, in 2000 Ms. Cloud had a piece published in Transformation called “Queer Theory and Family Values.” Gee: We wonder which one she favors. But surely the acme of Ms. Cloud’s academic career is her forthcoming chapter “The First Lady’s Privates: Queering Eleanor Roosevelt for Public Address Studies.” That does sound fetching, doesn’t it?

And so, dear reader, if you know an academic equally dedicated to indoctrinating children and penning worthless politicized rants dolled up in academic jargon, drop us a line at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly.” We aim to laud the professorate one teacher at a time.