Friday, September 13, 2002

Emily Stimpson at HMS Blog links to this article: Study lists 'bizarre' college courses and says "course you wouldn't find at Fran. Univ of Steubenville.
Here's an excerpt:

•"Philosophy and Star Trek" at Georgetown University. The course asks: "Is time travel possible?" "Can a person survive death," "Could we go back and kill our grandmothers?" and "Is Data a person?"
•"Seeing Queerly: Queer Theory, Film, and Video" at Brown University. The course asks, "While cinema has typically circumscribed vision along (heterosexually) normative lines, can film also empower viewers to see 'queerly'?"
•"Cultural History of Rap" at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). The class offers a discussion "on musical and verbal qualities, philosophical and political ideologies, gender representation, and influences on cinema and popular culture" in rap.
University officials defended their course selections yesterday.
UCLA officials said the university teaches more than 3,000 courses that "cover the full spectrum of liberal arts and sciences."
"And there is certainly room for adding new courses that deal with emerging social issues, music and culture, whether you like the music in this case or not," said Harlan Lebo, a university spokesman.
Mark Nickel, director of Brown's news service, said YAF knows nothing about the courses that make its list.
"To concoct a list of courses with titles that counter their ideology leaves the impression that these courses are easy, and they're not," said Mr. Nickel. "At some point, it becomes pointless to respond to their assertions."

Other classes cited by the study are:
•"Language and Sexual Diversity" at the University of Minnesota. The class teaches how language is used in "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities" and the "ways in which sexual diversity affects language use."
•"Black Feminism" at the University of Missouri. The course examines "the multiple systems of oppression on black women's lives and black women's collective actions against social structures."
•"Ecofeminism" at the University of Florida. It explores "Western tradition's naturalization of women and feminization of nature, drawing the conclusion that the domination of women and the domination of nature are intimately connected and mutually reinforcing."


My undergrad was a somewhat left-leaning liberal arts college and my enduring friendships and memories of my teachers are of those of the left-leaning persuasion, with the exception of a couple. So I am much more sympathetic to the curriculum examples described above

What I think that many Christians and Catholics fail to see is that there is much more content to many of these courses than meets the eye and it really truly does broaden one's view of the world. Also, one thing that tends to happen to Christians and Catholics is that the Cultural world tends to pass us by because we are reluctant to engage in what we percieve as morally unacceptable forms of culture. The fact is that we are in the world, but not of the world. We must know what the culture is thinking, what air it breathes, how it stands and what it listens to, if we are ever going to evangelize it.

Another issue is that Christians and Catholics need to become more comfortable with homosexuality. The fact is that it is, and has been, in our midst to stay, and from what I understand, the U.S. Catholic Church has twice the national average in terms of gay population. Courses on gay issues should be taken, if for nothing else, just to get us comfortable with this population because they are our brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, father's and mothers. Understanding gay culture does not mean endorsing certain behaviors. We simply cannot afford to live in isolation. Like Ron Kenoly, a Pentecostal singer said, we are in a battle with the forces of satan and there is no de-militarized zone. If we don't go out into the world, it will come into our church. And while darkness wins with temptation, sin, hatred and other vices, we win with one thing and one thing alone, love.

I noticed that the article mentioned a course on Philosophy and Star Trek. As a trekkie, and as any trekkie will tell you, Star Trek raises tons and tons of philosphical questions and even more significantly, these questions are posed in a way that are relevant to the 17/18 yr old freshman who is hung over and is think about booze and chicks.

Other courses mentioned, like Black Feminism, Eco-feminism and etc are actually solid content filled courses. I have taught some Black Feminism in a course I taught. Black Feminism is called "womanism" and it has raised very good questions. I know very little about Eco-feminism and I think it is important to. I read a lecture by, I think it was Elizabeth Johnson of Fordham U. who quotes Sir Francis Bacon, one of the fathers of modern science, extensively, and it was amazing. The image Bacon uses of nature is as a woman and the scientist's image is the man and the scientist approaches nature as a man approaches a woman. The problem here is that the description displays horrible biases in relation to men-women relations, i.e. inequality, exploitation, etc. and has had consequences for the philosphy of science and the standing of women in a man's world. These, I think, are substantive issues, because they are a critical appraisal of the blind spots of the present culture and past traditions.

So my point is that it wouldn't hurt Fran U. of Steubenville to consider courses like these, there is more relevant content to them than meets the eye of your average traditional Christian or Catholic.

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