PC WC

If you think the level of academic conferences can’t sink any lower, read on.

Last fall, New York University offered a day-long seminar titled “Sex, Gender and the Public Toilet: Outing the Water Closet.” Cultural commentator/author Roger Kimball reported that it took four departments to tackle this weighty topic: the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, the Department of Media, Culture and Communication, the Center for Religion and Media, and the Council on Media and Culture.

Kimball noted that the gathering “brought together pioneering scholars of sex and gender with leading design professionals and activists to consider, critique and reconstruct the rest room.”

This alone could justify NYU’s undergraduate tuition of 52K per year.

But wait, there’s more.

This event also included the screening of an hour-long film called “Q2P,” followed by a discussion with the filmmaker concerning “who has access to toilets and who doesn’t, and how gender, power and the need to ‘go’ make up public space and bodily well-being.”

Deborah Lambert writes the Squeaky Chalk column for Accuracy in Academia’s monthly Campus Report newsletter from which this feature is excerpted.

Deborah Lambert