Nobody ever says that something they like was crammed down their throat.
Not true, Hunt. I’ve been exposed to speeches and in other corporate/political venues or conventions where the main topic was just overemphasized, ad nauseum. The speakers were TOO preachy in favor of whatever it was (once, it was a real estate tax strategy!). It got kind of ridiculous. Just shut up already, I wanted to say. I got it the first 50 times, that you like (insert whatever it is).
Well, Pizzagirl, it’s hard for me to take someone who uses ad hominem attacks, and who responds flippantly. So I suppose we’re even.
The Bible
The Koran
On Natural Selection
The Mismeasure of Man
And the Band Played On
Any adult book from a list of banned books. Lolita?
I would not put any graphic novel on such a list. I suppose the intent was to limit the amount of reading necessary.
The point is not to avoid freak-outs. A few students politely stating they don’t want to read any particular text is not a freak-out. I am personally freaked out by posters on this thread who are willing to declare anyone should not seek a liberal education. It’s this sort of willingness to cast people out of community which leads to a breakdown in communication.
Education lives through debate. It does not live through tests of identity.
If a college accepts students from a variety of backgrounds, they will not all arrive on campus with the same values. It is through respectful conversation that people educate each other. If an idea can’t stand challenge, it is not an idea. It is perhaps a feeling. If one refuses to speak to people from other backgrounds, the conversation never gets started.
Offense is important. I am not advocating for avoiding giving offense. On the other hand, I’m not likely to experience effective conversation with someone who opens a conversation with insults.
Why the hate because it’s a graphic novel? Perhaps one of the points of discussion can be “How does a graphic novel change/enhance/differ from” the classical concept of a novel? Is it effective? How would the tale have been different if it were in a more “standard” form? Much as (denigrated by some here) modern art asks these same questions of “what is art”? I think the novel leads to much that young people of that age could relate to. How they are probably just coming to terms with their parents as imperfect creatures, realizing how the peculiarities of their own upbringing influences their own personalities, and how much of our true selves we hide from others.
Are you saying you find homosexuality immoral? and object to it being normalized? And therefore you object to the reading? Or am I misreading?
Graphic novels, anime, etc are taught in college classes. I don’t think the fact it is a graphic novel makes it an unusual assignment.
Again trying to argue both (or multiple) sides of this, let me ask these questions: should Duke choose a book that addresses a “hot button” issue for this reading? Is the issue of homosexuality a hot button issue? I don’t think these are all that easy to answer.
And one other question: do you think the panel that chose Fun Home realized that their choice would be this controversial? After all, this is a story that just won a Tony.
To be fair, Columbia has traditionally asked students to read the first chunk of the Iliad.
They could read the graphic novel versions.
@ 100,
I’m being intolerant? That is comical given that I think the Duke students should read any of the books on the suggested list regardless of their “beliefs.” That is part of growing up. We are NOT talking about 12 year olds either, are we?
I think the in-coming Duke freshman have to trust the committee that put the titles on the suggested readings list. End of story, end of sentence, end of drama.
I don’t have a clue how anyone can bash Duke over this, and somehow agree with the whining, insulated in-coming freshman. It is a graphic novel, it has won awards, it is hardly what a reasonable person would call dirty, obscene or gratuitous. If the selection was any of those things, okay, yes, one could refuse to read it and I’d get it.
Even now, it is simply SUGGESTED reading and there is a list to choose from so once again, how anyone could bash Duke over this is beyond my ability to reason. Duke did everything right on this one. My respect for Duke, already pretty darn high, goes up a notch or two. I think the freshman who tweeted about refusing to read this selection are cry babies.
I assume the Columbia freshmen study the Iliad at the beginning of the core curriculum, so it’s a bit different. It’s still a pretty heavy reading assignment, though.
Not one woman (oops I missed three) or person of color on the entire list? Almost nothing from the 20th century. The only one that surprises me that it is there is “Death in Venice” world’s most boring novella about a creepy would-be child molester.
@ 119,
Disagree. As Mathmom said in #153 the selected titles from Hillsdale college have almost nothing from the 20th century and, in my opinion, are a total yawnfest. Again, Duke did everything right including sticking to their guns. They had students on the committee on what in-coming freshman should read and they didn’t include every boring book they could think of they came up with books that would get people to think about things that might be a tad uncomfortable.
Great job, Duke!!
I am sorry. I am just not sure how to begin to engage in a serious discussion where posterity would ever put this comic book or whatever you call it on a list like this one (the list I posted). “Suum cuique” is the best I can do today.
St. Augustine
I’m merely articulating the perspective of the affected student (and perhaps Muslim students, who also do not view such drawings, I have read.)
I’m saying this topic differs as it is a current political issue that pits this changing cultural belief against traditional religious long-established beliefs/truths. For that reason, it differs in kind than the other examples given.
loukydad: Men created all the great books lists. They are arbitrary lists. Sappho isn’t on the list you linked to. She will be on some. Posterity will read what is available. Usually that means it was chosen to read in class. Graphic novels are being studied in college classes, so they will probably survive for posterity.
Zora Neale Hurston’s works were unavailable for years. Now she is considered kind of a classic, because she is taught in colleges. That is just one example of the sort of important writing I feel is missing from your list.
I am not against studying dead white men. I think it’s probably important to have this common knowledge. I just think that is the background from which we move on to more interesting readings.
“such drawings” constitute perhaps 4 or 5 out of the hundreds of drawings in the book. Can one not “avert one’s eyes”?
Hunt, Andres Serrano won the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art’s “Awards in the Visual Arts” competition, which is sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts for his “Piss Christ” photograph also, where he submerged a crucifix in his own urine (he has stated in interview).
Winning a prize is clearly not a good determinant of what is valuable or worthy of study.
Something for discussion IF one has read the book or viewed the art in question, IMO.
Someone upthread asked what the student’s other choices were regarding what he watches on TV, sees for movies, etc. We live in southern Virginia, and I do know families that homeschool where the kids are watching reruns of The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie for entertainment and where even the high schoolers have only seen Disney movies. If the kid falls into this category then he will be plenty lost at Duke and there will of course be multiple things that offend him and classes he cannot take (anything in film studies, presumably).
I foresee a long future of ‘opt outs’ which as a professor I always find difficult, since as you have said, it implies that the student is a better arbiter of what he needs to know and what parts of my class are superfluous than I am.
In this case, he may be able to find an alternate assignment that doesn’t offend but I"m not sure how that’s going to work out in Art History, Biology class, etc.
I predict that he does not last at Duke. And unfortunately, he’s probably going to hurt other applicants from Christian schools because the committee will remember him and think “Better not take this precious snowflake. We all know what happened with the last guy.”