thomas morsch intervenes very usefully on the issue of what one may and may not say [or show/not show] while teaching . . . his observations, reprinted below, represent what i take to be a classical academic freedom position, and as one who has run into some serious trouble from having taught offensive materials, i tend to be in virtually complete agreement with that position . . . . . .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 . . . i think what i'm suggesting is that some notion of acceptable [or reasonable or humane] public discourse operates as an implicit, and usually un-noticed, norm for most of us . . . it's only when discourse well within that norm is condemned that we raise the flag of academic freedom . . . but, unfortunately, reasonable and thoughtful people may well define that norm in different ways . . . so it's not an good/bad, right.wrong, either/or binary . . . rather it's a matter of two conflicting desiderata, civility on the one hand and intellectual integirty and rigor on the other, that come into conflcit in any multi-cultural community . . . the question of how to address [if not resolve] this problem remains a very tricky one mike frank ===================================== ORIGINAL MESSAGE: as a teacher at a german university, it is interesting for me to follow this discussion and to learn about the differences concerning teaching. Actually, I was surprised by the fact, that american teachers have to take such issues into consideration while planning a course. Concerning this issue I would take a strong stand for academic freedom. No one is forced to join my courses and all students ar grown-ups - so I see no reason to restrict my choice of films to PG-rated movies. Especially, this would make impossible to teach anything about pornography, horror or similar genres. And it would also exclude films by Carolee Schneeman, Kenneth Anger, Nagisa Oshima, etc. Actually, a student who complains about including films into a course that display graphic violence, nudity or that contain explicit language (the majority of movies beloning to one category or the other) seems to be the equivalent to a medical student who refuses to treat burnt victims, because it is "too gross". This would be ridiculous. This may sound a bit naive and it certainly shows that, up to now, I have been largely unconcerned with this issue. But I would like to hear other opinions advocating a greater sensibility concerning these issues. Thomas Morsch Film Dept. Freie Universitaet Berlin Germany ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu