Fired professor says he just pretended to be a Nazi

[matcom]

<snip>

Ihe strange story of Jacques Pluss just got stranger.

In March, Pluss was fired from his position as an adjunct professor of history at Fairleigh Dickinson University shortly after it became known that he had become a leader of the National Socialist Movement of the United States, which is also known as the American Nazi Party. Students and colleagues at the New Jersey institution were stunned, but Pluss could be heard on Nazi radio broadcasts and made racist and anti-Semitic comments to reporters covering his dismissal.

Today, in an article being published on the History News Network, Pluss explains that he was never a real Nazi, but pretended to be one and outed himself so that Fairleigh Dickinson would fire him — all to collect material so he could write a book.

In an interview, Pluss explained why he became a Nazi by saying: “I do not believe that any historian can fully grasp the actual spirit that is the essence of their subject unless they participate in it, and that participation has to come in as full a manner as possible.”

In his article, Pluss cited the influence of the French deconstructionists Derrida and Foucault, as well as the work of Ernst Kantorowicz, a historian of medieval Europe, to explain why he pretended to be a Nazi. While all three scholars dealt in varying ways with issues of reality, their followers have not generally been known to take the approach Pluss did. Pressed further on why he pretended to be a Nazi, he also cited interviews in which Anthony Hopkins discussed trying to think like an evil person when he was preparing for the role of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.

The research from his time as a Nazi will go into a book that will probably take the form of historical fiction, Pluss said. He said that he anticipates publishing the book with his own publishing company.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/16/pluss

[LisaL]

1. Well, looks like he pretended too well.

[hickman1937]

2. Gee whiz, I wonder if he's gotten an agent yet.

20 bucks says he's been shopping and probably got one.

[Dave Reynolds]

3. Cool.

I'll only pretend to be a political assassin, then.

[JanMichael]

4. Sounds like he's trying to channel, ok faking to, Stetson Kennedy.

Where Stetson infiltrated the KKK he never became a Grand Wizard...Then he wrote a book that got him death threats.

[philosophie_en_rose]

5. Thank goodness he wasn't studying Dahmer.

According to his logic, one would have to rape boys and cannibalize their bodies to understand him. :puke:

Even if was only "pretending" (fat chance of that), he deserves to be fired for stupidity.