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August 2000, Week 3

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Subject:
From:
"Sarah L. Higley" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 17 Aug 2000 20:00:37 -0400
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On Thu, 17 Aug 2000, mfrank wrote:

> specifically: what do we do about issues such
> as evolution with students whose religious beliefs
> make such issues offensive? . . . similarly, may we
> talk about freud to students whose lives include
> a serious investment in the notion of soul? . . . and
> how about teaching gay lit or film to those who
> find the very idea an abomination? . . .

I should HOPE that we could teach these things? We are
invested, after all, in the liberal arts? In expanding
awareness?

I wonder if this was quite the problem in the seventies?
I was attending Berkeley and taking classes where we read
and watched fairly explicit things, and to even suggest
that the teacher was wrong to show these branded you as
utterly uncool. I wonder if the concerns being expressed
here are not a result of the new sensitivity to the
violent content that has become so much an issue in
Hollywood film these days, especially following Columbine.
We may be on the opening arc of a pendulum swing towards
conservative and moralistic reaction to these issues.

I occasionally teach a course called "Classical and Scriptural
Backgrounds." I expect my religious students to be grown up
enough to accept the fact that I'm treating these texts
literarily. I expect my atheists to be polite to the
religious students. If a student objects to Blade Runner
in my "Alien Sex" course next semester, my gut reaction is
to suggest that he or she take something else. I know
that seems dismissive, but that's my gut reaction. The
course is entitled "Alien Sex," after the well-known
fiction anthology by Ellen Datlow. I think I may have
to post ratings.

> so what do we do? . . . this is a much more complex
> problem than ed's apparently innocent question seems
> to suggest

I agree. Times are a-changing. It's a new jungle out
there.

Sarah
*********************************************************************
Sarah L. Higley [log in to unmask]
Associate Professor of English office: (716) 275-9261
The University of Rochester fax: (716) 442-5769
Rochester NY, 14627
*********************************************************************
Py dydwc glein / O erddygnawt vein?
"What brings a gem from a hard stone?" Book of Taliesin
*********************************************************************

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