Who Fakes the Nazis?

Brian Doherty | January 30, 2006

Jacques Pluss, a part-time history professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ, was fired last year after a mysterious letter to the student newspaper exposed him as a secret Nazi.

Pluss is now saying that, influenced by Foucault, Derrida, and Kantorowicz, his Nazism was a deliberate deep masquerade, necessary for his research into fringe politics, since "any attempt to understand a group, a movement, or an individual psyche, would have to include becoming, as much as an individual can, the subject under study."

He notes that he knew his position was going away before next year anyway, so he engineered his own outing through that anonymous letter, "and I was on my way to living the experiences I needed in order to gather live research for my forthcoming volume on the 'wacky White Power Movement' in the United States, tentatively entitled 'False Blizzard.'"

His entire explanation makes entertainingly bizarre reading. One wonders if he will find many followers in this historical technique, or if he will ever find a job teaching again.

Comments

Dave W.|1.30.06 @ 1:09PM|#

I'd luv to think tat was a Fall ref.

|1.30.06 @ 1:11PM|#

But of course-ah.

|1.30.06 @ 1:13PM|#

Hey student! Hey student!... why's your teacher a nazi

|1.30.06 @ 1:20PM|#

All headlines are filched from the Fall

|1.30.06 @ 1:22PM|#

Also, "False Blizzard" sounds like the title of a Fall song.

|1.30.06 @ 1:28PM|#

Only the uncool don't know the Fall.

Dave W.|1.30.06 @ 1:32PM|#

I think this Fall lyric fits somehow:

HE had the 'Kingdom of Evil' book under a German history book--he was contrived like that-- See what flows! from his mushy pen. GARDEN, GARDEN. Sodomized by presumption.

|1.30.06 @ 1:33PM|#

maybe one day, i'll be hip enough to understand an H&R pop culture reference

nofrontin|1.30.06 @ 1:37PM|#

Coincidentally, I posted a Fall song on my mp3 blog earlier today for those of you not in the know:

http://songz.blogspot.com/2006/01/somebodys-done-for.html

|1.30.06 @ 1:39PM|#

Didn't some journalist, politician or actor try the same dodge on child porn a few years ago?

"I was just doing research!".

|1.30.06 @ 1:40PM|#

I used to live near this school. I saw a great Zappa concert there. I also saw a debate between Dr. Timothy Leary and Curtis Sliwa (formerly of the Guardian Angels). The school was sometimes referred to as "Fairly Ridiculous University".

nofrontin|1.30.06 @ 1:41PM|#

Yeah, Townsend of The Who. He got away with it too.

|1.30.06 @ 1:42PM|#

Yes, I think it was Pete Townsend, the guitarist for The Who.

|1.30.06 @ 1:46PM|#

nofrontin,
You almost got points for the KS pic on your blog, but then I don't see what it references.

|1.30.06 @ 1:48PM|#

I'm not really a nut job. I just hang out here at Hit&Run because I'm doing research on the what angle should a tin foil hat be worn to maximize both radio frequency shielding and to project a rakish air.

|1.30.06 @ 1:52PM|#

I don't think he should have been fired even if he was a Nazi, its called Freedom of Speech. As long as he kept his nonsense out of the classroom and taught the material.

Jeff P.|1.30.06 @ 1:53PM|#

I guess studying and analyzing Strasser's "The Wave" would have been a little too much like actual teaching for this jackass. A part-time professor using his employer's student newspaper to play his sociopathic persecution complex game instead of, oh, doing any fucking research or (god forbid) teaching is just asinine. I hope the students got a refund on those credits.

|1.30.06 @ 1:56PM|#

NoStar,
I'm partial to the tinfoil-hat style called "The Centurion". Oddly enough, the girls and boys at Grylliade.org went mainly for "The Fez".

|1.30.06 @ 1:59PM|#

I don't think he should have been fired even if he was a Nazi, its called Freedom of Speech.

Unless he was under a contract or had tenure, he can be fired for pretty much any reason at all. It's called "at-will employment." You don't have "freedom of speech" to conduct pomo deconstruction experiments on your employer's dime when you're supposed to be, you know, teaching history.

dhex|1.30.06 @ 2:09PM|#

good old fairly ridiculous.

btw, if he's telling the truth, i'd say his method is pretty neat. insane, but neat.

|1.30.06 @ 2:27PM|#

There's a man who's on a political bender
And now it looks like he will lose his tenure
With every move he makes another chance he takes
Odds are he won't be in class tomorrow

Secret nazi man, secret nazi man
They've given you the jackboot and taken away your name

|1.30.06 @ 3:22PM|#

If this excuse flies, how long before Ward Churchill tries it?

|1.30.06 @ 6:09PM|#

Somehow, this story brings to mind Henry Gibson at his desk carving the eagle figurine in The Blues Brothers: "Gruppenfuhrer, get
that car's license plate number."

|1.30.06 @ 8:40PM|#

He claims they were going to let him go anyway, he just wanted to make his departure a little bit more dramatic:

"You see, in late January, 2005, my school secretary informed me, on the sly, that no history adjuncts would be reappointed in September, 2005. Her reasoning was 'financial cut backs.' . . . I considered that the time was right to use myself as a human literary experiment."

In addition to that was the fact that he needed the whole Nazi experience to research his book.

Now, I wonder what he'll do to *promote* the book?

Wait, I just thought of something . . . could it be that promoting his upcoming book was among his *reasons* for doing this stunt? It's a wild guess, I know, but worth considering.

Alternative explanation: He's crazy as a loon.

|1.30.06 @ 8:45PM|#

It's so embarrassing to be associated with this nutball.

Sandy|1.30.06 @ 9:00PM|#

Shut up, you faux french fascist.

|1.30.06 @ 9:59PM|#

Stop insulting my son Michael!

|1.31.06 @ 10:09AM|#

Apparently, you can't be a nazi, faux or real, and remain in a teaching position at an American university, whereas it's pretty easy to be a tenured communist.

Even a lying, unhinged, batshit insane asshat-cum-faux-indian like Ward Churchill can't get sacked and finds lots of defenders in the higher echelons of academe.

Could it be that there's something of a double standard in the realm of higher education?