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Chris Coffman's avatar

I have a (seriously) worthy PhD thesis for you, albeit from the early 90s:

My dear friend Craig Chin was an MD and PhD in Political Science at NYU who tragically died of AIDS in 1993 at the age of 32. His PhD thesis shows how the Randy Schilts and his praise of ACT-UP in the book “And the Band Played On” distorted and in places fabricated how the US Government responded to the emergence of AIDS--a mysterious, terrifying disease in its early years.

Craig’s thesis demonstrates that the Reagan Administration responded to respectability politics and appeals to decency and our common humanity and provided funding and institutional resources at scale and as soon as possible.

To the extent this is acknowledged at all by activists, ACT-UP is given the credit. In fact, Reagan responded with common sense and humanity. He and his wife Nancy were actors with many gay friends, and there wasn't a prejudiced bone in his body.

By the way, Randy Schilts' account is also the basis for the hugely successful Broadway play and HBO feature “Angels in America", so the money till kept merrily ringing away, and the opportunities for moral outrage and self-promotion kept spinning along for decades.

Sadly, nobody’s ever heard of Craig’s thesis--the truth doesn’t always generate opportunities for huge fund-raising and demonstrations of self-promoting moral outrage.

I have a PDF of Craig’s thesis and would be glad to send it to anyone interested in reading it.

Requiescat in Pace, dear Craig.

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John Cougar Misanthrope's avatar

Academia and credentialism are a joke and always have been. I used to work with someone who occasionally dropped her Ph.D. status into casual conversation. A colleague managed to get a copy of her thesis, maybe even from her, which turned out to be the type of indecipherable verbal onanism that we have come to equate with other esteemed "doctors" of the soft arts such as the First Lady and the array of gender studies and sociology majors that you have highlighted.

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