I am convinced that “required reading” in college classes is not only required reading because it augments a student’s understanding of the curriculum but it also ummm, strokes the “ego” of the professor.

Take this story from Campus Reform. In a class at Roger Williams University, Stephan Brigidi, adjunct professor, teaches the class entitled “Aesthetics in Context: The Artistic Impulse”. The required textbook for which is his novel Afraid of the Dark: A Venetian Story. Seems harmless, right? A professor highlighting his own literary work in a class full of young minds for the sake of “aesthetics”. But when several students came forward anonymously, they mentioned that the novel itself is crude with in-depth drawings of naked women and explicit descriptions of sexual encounters. The following would make a housewife reading 50 Shades of Grey blush (WARNING: NSFW):