Kumar Goes To West Philly

Famed actor Kal Penn, best known for playing a stoner in Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, has begun teaching his class at the University of Pennsylvania. Yes, indeed, Kumar is now teaching at Penn. One can assume St. Joseph’s hiring of Joe Lunardi to teach Advanced Bracketology is not far behind.

Penn, whose name is actually Kalpen Modi, is an adjunct professor for this semester only in a class called ASAM 109: Asian Americans in the Media. And, uh, he seems pretty on the ball.

“I would love for them to independently think about imagery beyond the concept of race - to be able to look at and deconstruct certain images that we’re taught to think of in a certain context and understand why they’re so significant,” he said. “We all watch movies, and there’s a significance to those movies beyond entertainment that I hope the students are able to recognize after this class.”

Naturally, the students will be viewing Harold & Kumar for the class. If things work out for me, one day I will be teaching a class at Penn showing the same film, along with the entire Cheech & Chong series, How High and that scene from Scary Movie 2 where the giant pot plant smokes one of the Wayans brothers. Just ‘cuz, you know, it’d be pretty cool to teach a class titled Marijuana & Cinema at an Ivy League school.

Prof. Kumar calls class into session [Daily Pennsylvanian]
[Photo via DP/Matt "Buddy" Cianfrani]