Dear all, Mike Frank wrote: [...] > . . .but what complicates the matter is that for almost all of us [even, >i would venture, for thomas morsch] there are going to be things that >it would be, at best, inappropriate to say in class . . . fairly simple >case >in point: while we may feel justified in using the word "stupid" in >referring to a religious position that absolutely refused to recognize >any validity at all in notions of evolution [ar archaeology or astronomy >for that matter], we probably would not particularly applaud a teacher >who called a student who believed this "stupid" . . . similarly we might >find a course in pornography legitimate but would probably hesitate >before inviting a pair of porn stars to have sex in our classrooms . . . > Just a quick remark to clarify a point that is important to me: I absolutely agree with what you say. The point is that there is a difference between _making remarks_ in class that are offensive to believers of a certain religion on the one hand and discussing a _film_ in class that might be offensive to the same people on the other hand. There is a difference between promoting pornography and discussing a pornographic film. In a seminar on pornography I would always encourage students who are against these kinds of film to defend their opinion in class. But I would not accept any complaints about discussing and showing these films at all. In the same manner discussing racist films - and criticizing them as racist - is different to making racist remarks. Discussing violent films is not equivalent to advocating violence, and so on. So yes, there are indeed norms of behaviour in class (at least I hope so), but these norms are not identical to nor do they set a precedent for the norms by which we choose the objects of our studies. Thomas Morsch Film Dept. Freie Universitaet Berlin Germany ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite