Harvard Hires Illustrious Academic

Source: Instagram

In its unending quest to prove that it remains the unrivaled beacon of Western civilization, Harvard University has announced the appointment of Dr. Kareem Khubchandani as a visiting associate professor in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Students, however, may find him better known by his scholarly sobriquet: LaWhore Vagistan.

Dr. Khubchandani, whose curriculum vitae includes a Ph.D. in performance studies and an extensive body of drag performances, will teach two courses that promise to edify the Harvard undergraduate body. The fall semester offers Queer Ethnography, while the spring will provide RuPaulitics: Drag, Race, and Desire. At last, the Harvard name will be safely tethered to the intellectual heritage of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

The professor is also author of weighty tomes such as Decolonize Drag and Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife. Parents concerned that their $90,000 in tuition is squandered on frivolity should rest assured: the canon has now expanded. If the medieval university had Summa Theologiæ, the modern university has Khubchandani’s next book, Lessons in Drag: A Queer Manual for Academics, Artists, and Aunties, bound to grace nightstands across the country upon its release later this month. He is also co-editor of Queer Nightlife (University of Michigan Press) and curator of www.criticalauntystudies.com, which I have generously removed the hyperlink to.

Of course, Harvard is not merely paying for a professor, but for a personality, or multiple. LaWhore Vagistan brings together humor, storytelling, and performance. Indeed, nothing says gravitas quite like an academic alter ego whose name cannot be printed in most church bulletins.

The appointment naturally raises questions. Will donors, delighted at the sight of America’s most prestigious university elevating drag into the classroom, double their giving? Will undergraduates emerge more employable in the real world for having mastered the principles of RuPaulitics? Or is Harvard’s strategy subtler still: to ensure that satire itself becomes impossible, since no lampoon could exceed reality?

There was a time when Harvard courses sought to form statesmen, philosophers, and scientists. Today it forms disciples of LaWhore Vagistan. Perhaps that is the progress demanded by the twenty-first century. Perhaps not. In any case, the experiment will soon begin, with the world watching closely as Harvard proves, once again, that the serious business of higher education is best entrusted only to the most disordered among us.