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Professor of English Kip Barlow spent Monday morning scanning Wikipedia entries on classic literature as he prepared to bullshit his way through his 53rd straight semester on Brown’s faculty.
While some may question his qualifications, Barlow is proud of his teaching methods. “A quick glance at the Sparknotes page for ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ tells me it’s not about raisins,” he explained. “A lot of other professors wouldn’t bother to check that, but it’s little details like that that really set my class apart.”
Sources close to Barlow say he has not read a book since receiving tenure in 1993. But that does not appear to lessen his enthusiasm for the written word. “The beauty of literature is that it’s open to interpretation,” said Barlow, filling a paperback with Post-It flags. “Which allows me to connect pretty much anything to whatever theme I want.”
“Then I plug that theme into a Google image search, throw the results in a Powerpoint, and call it a day,” he continued.
A firm believer in the Socratic method, Barlow makes heavy use of student-driven discussion in class. “I ask each student to bring in one or two questions from the text, and the class then works together to probe these issues. We often don’t reach definitive answers, but the depth of these students’ explorations is truly remarkable.”
Despite his apparent lack of expertise, Barlow is beloved among English students. “Kip is very academic. I’m always blown away by the stacks of paper sitting around when I go in for office hours,” said Jordan Noll ’14. “And the way he sweats through his tweed is so intellectual!”
His praise is not universal, however. “When he returned my paper, he had just underlined random sentences and written a few checkmarks here and there,” said Jenny Damm ’13. “But I got an A, so I guess I can’t really complain.”
Barlow’s colleagues are also critical of his style. “Kip makes the rest of the department look bad,” complained fellow Professor of English Laura Moore. “The artistry present in his bullshitting simply puts our meager attempts to shame.”
Barlow was last year’s recipient of the Umberto Dias Fellowship, an honor whose significance he admitted he did not entirely understand.
