The University of Kansas is offering a course on the study of “angry white men” for the fall 2019 semester. Students will explore the role of “dominant and subordinate masculinities” as they connect to “rights-based movements of women, people of color, homosexuals and trans individuals.”

“Angry White Male Studies” (HUM 365) is cross-listed under both the Humanities department and the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies department at KU. It is an option to satisfy a Humanities course requirement. The humanities are the study of how people process and document the human experience. In other words, the course falls under the umbrella of English literature, modern languages, history, and philosophy.

The course will be taught by Christopher Forth, the dean's professor of humanities and professor of history at KU. One of his teaching interests is “Cultural History, Gender and Sexuality, the Body and the Senses.” He is the author or editor of twelve books, including The Dreyfus Affair and Crisis of French Manhood and Masculinity in the Modern West.

Through the coursework, students will learn about “the deeper sources of this emotional state while evaluating recent manifestations of male anger,” according to the course description.

Forth did not respond to request for comment in time for publication. The full course description reads:

"This course charts the rise of the 'angry white male' in America and Britain since the 1950s, exploring the deeper sources of this emotional state while evaluating recent manifestations of male anger. Employing interdisciplinary perspectives this course examines how both dominant and subordinate masculinities are represented and experienced in cultures undergoing periods of rapid change connected to modernity as well as to rights-based movements of women, people of color, homosexuals and trans individuals. (Same as WGSS 365.) Prerequisite: WGSS 101 or WGSS 102, or permission of the instructor. LEC."

Alexander James is a contributor to Red Alert Politics and is a freelance journalist.