UCLA: Where ‘Queer Studies’ and Middle East Studies Meet

In recent years UCLA’s Center for Near Eastern Studies has become one of the most radical organizations of its kind in the U.S., and Campus Watch has covered no small number of events there. Eric Golub recently attended the UCLA Queer Studies Conference for 2010, and his CW-sponsored report appears today at American Thinker:

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES) is a delightful contradiction of incompatible notions. On one hand, the professors take hard-left stances on sexuality and gender issues, claiming to staunchly support the rights of gays and women. Yet they also worship at the altar of radical Middle East studies professors who act as apologists for Sharia law and other policies completely at odds with Western “liberalism.”

The UCLA Queer Studies Conference 2010, which took place on October 8-9 and counted CNES among its sponsors, was a case in point. The panel discussion I attended, along with all of fifteen people, was titled “Trans-lating the Middle East.” Let me “trans-late” and save others the time of attending future UCLA conferences on the subject. Gays in the Middle East are persecuted. It really is that simple. But that didn’t stop participants from engaging in the usual anti-Western, jargon-laden rhetoric.

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Winfield Myers is managing editor of the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project, which reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North American universities. He has taught world history and other topics at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, Tulane, and Xavier University of Louisiana. He was previously managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine and CEO of Democracy Project, Inc., which he co-founded. Mr. Myers has served as senior editor and communications director at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is principal author and editor of a college guide, Choosing the Right College (1998, 2001). He was educated at the University of Georgia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan.
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