Philosophy Department Introduces ‘Advanced Nihilism’ Course; Students Eagerly Await Graded Meaninglessness

New Haven, CT – Yale University’s Philosophy Department announced this week the launch of “Advanced Nihilism,” a 400-level seminar exploring the theoretical and practical applications of meaninglessness. The course, set to begin this fall, has already reached its enrollment cap, with students citing both an urgent desire for academic challenge and the comfort of well-structured existential futility.

According to Dr. Miranda Greaves, chair of the department and author of “Existence: A User’s Malfunctioning Guide,” the decision was a response to growing student demand for curricula addressing the apparent arbitrariness of contemporary existence. “We noticed our introductory classes left students unsatisfied,” Greaves told reporters, gesturing toward a half-completed syllabus. “They wanted to probe the void in a more rigorous and, ideally, credit-bearing context.”

University materials describe Advanced Nihilism as an “immersive survey of radical nothingness,” requiring prerequisites in Ethical Bafflement and Logic or at least a high C in Modern Disappointment. Coursework will involve weekly essays on foundational texts, group presentations on the emptiness of group work, and a semester-long personal reflection project in which students will “systematically dismantle the illusion of purpose in their academic trajectory.” Attendance is both mandatory and, according to the syllabus, “possibly illusory.”

Several departmental initiatives have been launched to support the new course. A specially formed Nihilism Curriculum Committee (NCC), comprised of five tenured professors and a rotating selection of absent adjuncts, will oversee quality assurance measures. “We’ve spent hours deliberating whether rubrics themselves perpetuate the false idol of objective assessment,” said NCC co-chair Professor Randall Stintz. “After an inconclusive vote, we decided students will receive marks between A and blankness, depending on their performance at vanquishing all hope for meaning.”

Students have responded with enthusiasm, forming two competing but mostly apathetic study groups and a themed podcast, “What’s the Point?” Second-year philosophy major Miranda Ott described her anticipation: “It’s just refreshing to be promised that none of my efforts here will ultimately matter, especially in a GPA-calibrated, resume-driven world. Still, I’m hoping for an A.”

Initial classroom sessions will adopt a ‘flipped meaninglessness’ model in which the instructor remains silent for the duration of the lecture while students discuss the implications of silence on the perceived relevance of the lecture itself. The final examination will reportedly consist of a single question—“Why?”—written in vanishing ink, to be completed during a scheduled blackout caused by ongoing campus energy cost-cutting efforts.

As Dr. Greaves notes, “This is the next logical step in critical thinking education: empowering students to critically not think, at an advanced level.” At press time, the department declined to clarify whether course credits would themselves be valid come graduation or were, in fact, only figments of a collective academic delusion.