The College Fix

The concept is simple: “Add a politically correct subtitle to the book of the week, and win the admiration of contrarians everywhere.”

That from the National Association of Scholars, which launched on Monday its latest satirical contest designed to mock and expose leftist lunacy — and allow observers and pundits to have a little fun along the way.

In the past the group has hosted a contest asking for mock trigger warnings for classical books, inspired by Columbia students asking for trigger warnings on mythology texts because they’re “wrought with histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression” and are “difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low-income background.”

This time around, the association presents: “Update the Classics: Add a PC Subtitle.”

“Each week we’ll propose a classic book—or a slate of classics—that needs a new PC subtitle. Send in your recommendations, and each week we’ll select a winner to announce on our website, along with runners-up. Share your submissions on Twitter with the hashtag #PCSubtitle and the NAS Twitter handle @NASorg,” the association writes on its website, which also includes an online form for those who want to play along off the grid.

The contest this week is focused on Jane Austen.

“Pick any Austen book and let us know your new subtitle,” the association says. “Here’s our suggestion: ‘Pride and Prejudice: Finding Safe Spaces for Queer Folks Under Heteronormative Tyranny. #PCSubtitle @NASorg.”

Now it’s The College Fix’s turn to give it a stab. How about — Emma: One Woman’s Quest To Smash the Patriarchy.

In all seriousness, there is something to be said about reading and appreciating books written by “Dead White Dudes” and the like. First Things has posted a companion piece to the contest about the value of old books.

“We benefit from the clarity arising from past mistakes. We can learn to avoid old errors, of course, but ‘the clean sea breeze of the centuries’ sweeps away hubris, as well. Meeting dead assumptions—whether they are disproven or merely discarded—confronts us with the realization that we may have our own unexamined suppositions. What premises do we consider self-evident that earlier generations scorned? Perhaps our own generation’s ideological fads are not so permanent as they seem,” writes Rachelle Peterson, NAS’ director of research projects.

“…Old books remind us that human nature persists across time,” she continued. “Rosalind’s love for Orlando, hidden in her boyish disguise but at the end bursting forth in womanly depth, speaks to us today as it did in Shakespeare’s time. Joy, love, loneliness, valor, heroism, grief, pride—we sense these anew with characters whose lives look nothing like our own. Human emotion isn’t limited by geography, economic conditions, political structures, or time. The stories of long ago reflect to us something of our own experiences, as in a mirror that mimics the major features but twists and alters the rest.”

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