What If Department
As usual, Cornell University is far ahead of the curve. slam dunking the competition. Yesterday, the university sent out a bulletin announcing that it would be starting up the first Alternative History program in the US this coming Fall semester. That's right, folks. The What If Department.
For those of you in the know, Alternative History is that trendy new branch of history that marries sci fi with historical methodology to ask questions like - what would have happened if the South had won the Civil War. Yo, dude, we'd all be whistling dixie.
CU has hired the foremost alternative historian on the planet, Dr. Lee Harvey Spengler to head up the program. Dr. Spengler hails from Chicken Rice University in Camden, NJ, a school long known for its cutting edge curriculum. Founded by scions of the Campbell Soup fortune, Chicken Rice University was also the first school to offer courses in the history of product development and the phenomenology of soup. Dr. Spengler, who, incidentally is a distant descendant of that famous pessimist and depressive, Oswald Spengler, has a reputation for mixing and matching academic disciplines. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the topic - What If Spinoza Converted to Buddhism? Since graduating from Chicken Rice University in 1982, Spnegler has authored several books, including The Industrial Revolution Didn't Happen, and Japan Won!.
Dr. Spengler has assembled a faculty of heavy hitters from all over the world - alternative economists, alternative physicists, alternative geographers, alternative sociobiolog ists, etc etc. What better place than Ithaca, New York - the alternatives capital of the universe - to launch such an exciting program, you ask? Well, Dr. Spengler would have preferred Trenton State College but, unfortunately, that little known two year college in New Jersey, just couldn't come up with the dough.
Ezra has peeked at the new prospectus and definitely approves. Yep, the fools on the hill are finally on the right track. Ezra is particularily excited about the course outline for Alternative American History 101 which covers topics like Vietnam, the 51st State; Adolf Hitler, 29th President of the US; and Worker's Paradise, What if Eugene Debs Got Elected?
Who knows? Ezra might end up there on the hill, wearing a beanie and sporting a Big Red sweat shirt. Can you imagine that? Ez a beanie boy?
Well, Ezra has been mulling over a couple of topics for his doctoral thesis. He's particularily fond of two that he came up with to plumb the detours of local history. It's a toss up between:
What if Ezra Cornell had been born an African American?
and
What if Jeffrey Dahmer Attended Cornell?
Pretty interesting stuff, eh?
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 7:00 AM
