Subversion of BS: perverse and often baffling

I was reminded of the "Subversion of BS" course that I took/created in college, yesterday, when I was informed of a story Malcolm Gladwell had told, of how he had inserted first the phrase "raises new and troubling questions" and then "perverse and often baffling" into health and science articles at the Washington Post.

His story is, unfortunately, fiction -- but mine is not.

As English majors in college, many of my friends and I were subjected to class after class of discussing theories -- reading theory, writing theory, critical theory, literary theory -- on how to read, write and use English. These theories also sometimes took over classes that might otherwise have been spent discussing the contents of books or poems, which was fine: Far be it from me, an intellectual, to begrudge anyone a bit of "meta"-level thinking.

But by senior year, I was ready for action -- just when my courseload was ready for me to begin my real, serious work in theory.

So I took Writing Theory and Literary Criticism, and went slowly insane.

Well, that's not strictly true: I went quickly insane, and then did something about it.

I don't want to take full credit for something for which the origins have become fuzzy in my memory (help me out here, Deb), but at some relatively early point in LitCrit, it seemed clear to me that the only way to survive the class -- taught by a professor born under a star so different from mine that we seemed to be speaking mutually unintelligible languages, and full to the brim with "English ed" majors, most of whom are not, by nature, theorists -- was to create our own meta-class.

Thus was born the "Subversion of BS 101."

The mission, accepted by myself and classmate/roommate/friend Debbie, was to subvert the bullshit of literary theory (which should be openly acknowledged by even its most stanch defenders) by inserting absurd words, phrases or concepts so seamlessly into our essays that they would be indistinguishable from a real, actual point, thus proving the bullshit nature of literary theory as a whole. We would get to giggle at the unsuspecting readers of our sabotaged essays, and I, for one, would get to feel that I was doing my part in both accomplishing something (writing a LitCrit essay) and in acknowledging the inherent ridiculousness of having accomplished it (LitCrit having pitifully little real-world application, certainly in comparison to, say, eliminating starvation or AIDS).

The Subversion of BS course awarded credits for insertion of the designated words, phrases or concepts, which were broken down into "normal credit" and "mad credit" depending on the difficulty of including the word/phrase/concept. The list was added to as the term went on and Deb or I thought up another worthy SoBS candidate. There was a final requirement, which both of us met, and at the end of the term, in a baffling act of hubris, we stapled the "syllabus" (SoBS list) to our final essays for the edification of the professor.

Here, below, then, is the list as it stood (I believe) at the end of class:

Alicia and Debbie’s Course in the Subversion of B.S., or “If she says she hates ya, that can also mean she loves ya”*

Normals:
Absynthe
“Body and Soul”
breakfast in a can
Craptacular
(the concept of) croquet
feist/dandle
fizzy-lifting (drinks)
Gidget
Harem
“It’s a Small World”
“just the ticket”
little bunny Foo-foo
mad scientist
“Ocean Lotion Potion”/Enya (form follows content)
reference to the flag of Wales
reference to VIP
“shut your face/mouth”
Spaghetti-Os
Spinal Tap
Strong Bad/Homestar
the heck
traditional grease-toast
“Union Jack” (no explanation)
warp and woof
Weasel words
“whatever”

Mad Credit:
Combination of any three “Normals”
Full paragraph on croquet
Full paragraph of the word “phallus”
Improved lyrics from “OLP”
Lyrics from “Gidget Goes to Rome”
“shut your word/pie/cake-hole”
Quotation of Spinal Tap lyrics
VIP—Keith reaching into cow (up to armpit/bare-chested=extra credit)

Final: (required)
apotheosis


*Some additional context: The title of the course includes a quote from a "Gidget" movie song; I was writing a paper on Freudian analysis of the unconscious in literature (hence the "phallus" references); "OLP" stands for an Enya song known colloq. as "the Ocean Lotion Potion" song, for reasons that become obvious to any listener; "Body and Soul" refers to an out of print black-and-white silent melodrama shown by LitCrit professor in another class; VIP refers to the British TV show "Vets in Practice," as does the reference to Keith putting his arm into the side of a cow; the final, involving the inclusion of the word "apotheosis" came as a result of my having a laughing fit in the middle of class when the professor used this word, as though the class had any idea what he was talking about.