By Staff Reporter |
Arizona State University is encouraging freshmen to take courses on LGBTQ+ identity and witchcraft, which some are criticizing as “woke” content that undermines rather than contributes to academia.
ASU offers these courses through Discovery Seminars offered exclusively to freshmen students. Each seminar comes with one course credit.
The LGBTQ+ identity course, “LGBTQ+ Cinema and TV in Pop Culture,” is taught by Gabriel Acevedo, assistant professor of English and Puerto Rican native. While teaching at a Catholic school in Puerto Rico, Acevedo introduced LGBTQ+ poetry to his students.
The ASU course focuses on mobilizing progressive ideas of gender, sexuality, and LGBTQ+ identities through pop culture, namely visual media like TV and movies.
Concepts of gender and sexuality are presented as fluid and subject to change with time. The course also explores how intersectionality impacts LGBTQ+ ideology by discussing identities, race, abilities, and class.
“[This course will] determine the extent to which LGBTQ+ experiences and conversations can unlock unprecedented, crucial, and essential cultural movements for young adults and teens,” stated the course description.
Acevedo’s most recent publication featured on the National Council of Teachers of English for the English Journal, “Mediating Empathy: Teaching LGBTQIA+ Young Adult Literature with Literary and Critical Care,” stressed the importance of not just including LGBTQ+ content in courses but teaching affirmation of LGBTQ+ identities to students.
Acevedo’s approach proposed treating LGBTQ+ content with the same reverence as works more traditionally classified as classic literature.
“Without intentional pedagogical focus, teachers risk unintentionally reinforcing the very marginalization they aim to challenge. Therefore, LGBTQIA+ texts should be regarded as cultural artifacts that require careful interpretation, balancing celebration of queer humanity with strategies for harm reduction,” said Acevedo. “These experiences strengthen my belief that every young person — whether queer, questioning, or cisgender heterosexual — benefits from literature that affirms gender and sexuality diversity and fosters critical empathy. Similarly, teachers, whether queer-identifying or allies, need practical, research-based strategies to responsibly include such texts in their classrooms.”
The witchcraft course, “Witches in the Age of #WitchTok,” is taught by Susan Nguyen, a poet and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing editor-in-chief of ASU’s international literary journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review.
“#WitchTok” refers to the viral online subculture with millions of posts and billions of views dedicated to witchcraft. Creators who engage in this online subculture practice witchcraft and many use their platforms to educate others practicing, to include spells, potions, and divination.
Users attest to communicating with deities such as Hekate, or creatures like fairies and forest nymphs.
Some users attest that witchcraft and Christianity, which commands against the practice of witchcraft, may be practiced simultaneously.
Top creators include Frankie Ann (@chaoticwitchaunt, over 1.6 million followers across multiple social media channels).
In her course, Nguyen reframes witches as more than fictional side characters and as real and “powerful” figures of controversy and esteem that are making a “comeback.”
Nguyen also promotes and encourages gossip “as a tool of power and protection, especially for women and marginalized communities.”
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