So gay
I have had to read six novels and several short stories this trimester for university. Three of the novels contained descriptions of man-love or bi-sexuality, and many of the short stories followed similar themes. The latest made me angry. The Golden Gate by Vickram Seth is a superb piece of writing until…
…Phil thinks, “Why
Be so uptight? He’s a great guy.
I’ve never bothered with convention.
God! It’s a year that I’ve been chaste…,”
And puts his arm round Ed’s waist…
I can’t repeat what follows. It’s not that I’m a homophobe, I just don’t see why 50% of the material I am required to read should involve sodomy. Am I being unreasonable? They could at least provide a disclaimer as warning.
what sort of class are these readings for?
If it’s for BeingGay101, then I can understand, but if it’s for Calculus101, then I’m concerned…
Engl332: American Literature & Engl234: NZ Literature.
Yeah, I remember once I read this book with serious women characters. And black people. They should have put a disclaimer on the front “warning: contains black characters”
This is what always annoyed me about English, was that via the readings, they were always trying to push an agenda or a world view, and that world view was never acknowledged or criticised when discussing the books in class. It sucks when you read a book that is entertaining and interesting and well written but which pushes a world view that you disagree with (some more obvious than others).
What can you do about it? Complaining to course co-ordinators never seems to work. Perhaps during discussion of the readings you can raise the point, but from experience, you either get support from a few people or they are so far removed from your world view that they don’t really understand. At College we had to read “The Handmaiden’s Tale” which was blatantly feminist and anti-Christian (but a cracking good read). When I said in class that it was a well written piece of feminist and anti-Christian propoganda, the most common response was “but it is only a book – it is fiction”.
Digitaleus, I think that is an unfair equivalence.
John, you’re right. You’d think pomo lit departments wouldn’t be so naive, and would be experts at identifying agendas.
Digitaleus: See comment 6.
John: Exactly.
Maybe a good start is to make people realise that everything is a “view from somewhere”. There is no ‘neutral’ space in which opinions can be given and formed. It’s not as if the moralistic Christians are pushing their agenda while the course co-ordinators just want a flavourless ‘tolerance’ and ‘openess’. Everyone’s position is fundamentally religious, and has definite content, one way or the other.
Most people don’t understand that, though, because their basic opinions are so widely held that, paradoxically, they disappear from view. It is only the unusual, the abnormal, the unorthodox opinions, that stand out against the ‘normal’ background.
I reckon Christians need to show, again and again, that this is what is happening: students are being fed a definite agenda. It is the spirit of our times. So, we need to stand against that agenda in whatever ways we can, being true images of God at every point. This doesn’t mean antagonism, anger or self-righteousness. But it does mean that communities of our people need to demonstrate a new way of approaching life, one that produces love, peace, patience, etc – the gifts of God’s Spirit.
And when representatives of those people go to university, they’ll carry with them, in discussions and actions, a counter-culture. The stronger our communities, the more effective the counterculture will be. For ultimately, this is a clash of cultures – one of exile and death, the other (by God’s grace & Spirit) of restoration and life.
Sorry for being longwinded.
Which doesn’t mean quietly sitting in tutorials hoping that nobody asks you what you thought of the book.
Aaron – commendations. I hear echoes of Rushdoony in that statement.
re 9, I confess my own inconsistency. I often find myself rebounding between this approach (staying uncomfortably silent) and then saying something controversial but neutrally worded, or coming clean with my viewpoint. It is hard to be consistent.
re 8: aaron, if you were sorry, you wouldn’t do it again
Richard D. Bartlett: I’m reminded of a comment you made re my writing in Salient – “If you can’t write anything really good, don’t write anything at all”. I’m tempted to recommend you apply that philosophy to your blog comments.
With disregard to your latest comment, Tim, I will say something else:
What’s a homophobe if you’re not one?
UrbanDictionary.com – n. One with an irrational fear of homosexuality and homosexuals. For the most part these people seem to have little actual experience with the aforementioned.
I’m am not in the slightest bit afraid of homosexuals. I have clearly just been through an experience involving homos. I am disgusted and saddened by homosexuals and homosexuality.
I encourage you to regard comment 12.
matthew – i am taking a class on literary theory right now and reading tons of different viewpoints about why we should read, how we should read, and what we should read.
here’s a link to a good intro site in case you are just dying to read literary theory
i find myself agreeing with the more conservative theorists – who argue for a canon.
i really like this quote by harold bloom: “the teaching of poems, plays, stories, and novels is now supplanted by cheerleading for various social and political crusades”. i think that many literature programs have become little more than this sort of propaganda-like “cheerleading”. but, this is my bias – i am (after all) a very bad feminist. all my favorite writers are males.
still – the positive side of being in an agenda-driven class and reading texts you disagree with is that it pushes you to engage with the literature on a critical, intellectual level.
Richard – for what it’s worth, I don’t find Tim especially homophobic. I find that he doesn’t like homosexuality. If Tim were to say “all homosexuals should be shot”, then I would say he is homophobic. And pridefully arrogant. But he isn’t.
Perhaps you could explain why his desire not to be confronted with descriptions of gay sex is homophobic.
On another point: what I meant by “sorry for being longwinded” is this: “I regret that it took this many words to make my point. I wish it were not so.”
I’m sorry that my apology for length was too brief.
Thanks for that Amy.
W.r.t to your last point “still…” I guess that’s the frustration John was expressing, the class/prof isn’t interested in discussion on the critical level “it’s just a book not a conspiracy”.
Amy – was there an article in the collection you particularly recommend?
matthew – well then, i think very little of your professor.
it seems to me that there should be two schools of teaching literature – one would seek only to foster enjoyment of the texts – and would thus choose texts that were likely to appeal to and engage students (which seems to not be the case here)
or – a professor can deliberately choose challenging texts to in order to foster critical thought (this is what i will be likely to do)
if you think about it – anything less than encouraging critical reading is creating a coercive environment. if you are not free to challenge and engage – or to choose to do a resistant reading of the text – then the professor is, in effect, taking away your individual liberty and forcing you to accept one reading of the text. very bad pedagogy.
aaron – the real strength of the “falling into theory” folks is that they provide so many contrasting viewpoints. if you are interested in theory and different schools of thought re: criticism – i would suggest following the criticism link and just hopping around a bit to get a feel for what is out there. i find myself agreeing the most of what bloom and friere say – but some of the feminists are interesting ( hooks, robinson, gilbert and gubar). also fish and rabinowitz have interesting (largely conflicting) ideas about who creates meaning – the author or the reader? i am still in the middle of figuring out where i stand on alot of the issues.
but i do know that i love the canon.
i just noticed that paulo friere’s essay is not online. it is nifty if you can find it – called “the ‘banking’ concept of education”. friere is very cool.
The problem is that the professors do encourage critical reading – as long as it’s not from a Christian perspective. I have written many essays from a Christian perspective, only to have them returned with bad marks and comments to the effect, “it’s impossible to prove Christianity so don’t write from that viewpoint”.
Tim, I’m afraid that sort of thing would get close to provoking me to violence. Such comments only reveal what idiocy lies beneath the so-called ‘sophistication’ and ‘integrity’ of our academic traditions. It’s all veneer for cavemen with verbal clubs and personal agendas to hide behind.
Amy – I shall attempt to wander around. I’m definitely interested in the general area, partly because of the politics involved, but also because it tends to merge with ‘purer’ philosophy, which I’m also keen on – eg postmodern/modernist interactions, and even philosophy of language.
aaron – if you are interested – when i finish this class mid-july, i’d be happy to send you the text.
Cheers Amy! You’re in America, aren’t you?? I wouldn’t ask you to send a text all that way – at least not if I could get it locally. But thanks very much for the offer. What is it, btw?
Matthew: my response is belated but: in secular society, the two prejudices are entirely equivalent. And saying “I don’t think that’s a fair comparison” is a rebuttal, it’s a brush-off one liner that’s likely to wash in this arena, cos everyone else agrees with you.
Why, from the perspective of your course co-ordinators are they different? Note the emphasis. You are criticising your course co-ordinators actions, which must be assessed from his point of view.
I suppose you could argue that it might offend “someone”, but can you honestly imagine university staff saying “we decided not to study gay literature because some people think homosexuality is wrong”? That’s textbook censorship, and for the most banal of reasons.
So, Matthew, the ball is in your court. Without referring to your religious beliefs (your lecturer doesn’t give a shit) how is your prejudice against gays different from a prejudice against blacks?
Digitaleus: Who said anything about prejudice (apart from you)?
My original complaint was against the high percentage of gay content in the courses. I wouldn’t bother complaining about the odd bit of man-loving, but half the books I have to read are about gays!
It’s comments exactly like yours which give many Christians the unreasonable label of ‘homophobic’.
Oh and re, “it’s a brush-off one liner that’s likely to wash in this arena, cos everyone else agrees with you”. Perhaps you should read some of John’s comments. I rarely come across a post of Matt’s which isn’t criticised by John…or myself if I can think of something clever to say. All that hippy stuff, I never agree with that.
re 26a (half the books): Fair point, Tim. I had actually assumed that Matt made the original post and was replying to his “unfair comparison” remark, which was terse and consequently I felt justified in leaping to conclusions – i’m not sure why.
To answer you, the level a topic’s appearance in art is proportional to the weightiness of the issue in the society from which it came. People evidently and understandably have a lot to say about homosexuality – just look at this thread! I mean, you already admitted it was a superb piece of writing. I doubt that the course co-ordinator was consciously choosing more gay writing. These things just happen sometimes, it’s kind of like how you’re more likely to go to a movie your friends were talking about.
re 26b (unreasonable label): Homophobic is too strong, but there is this undertone – the use of the morally-loaded word “sodomy”, which basically means “unnatural sex”, the sideways arguments about “i don’t mind it’s in the course, but does it have to be there so much”. It’s hard to describe because evidences in a million tiny things. It’s like being pissed off by it but knowing it’s not proper in the 21st century to make an issue of such things.
re 27: I was meaning about the gay issue specifically.
1. re 28: The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines sodomy as “anal intercourse”. That is what gay men do. They have anal sex. Sodomy is only one sexual act in a whole list of…’interesting’…things gay couples do. What makes sodomy a “morally-loaded” word?
Point taken about the amount people have to say bout homosexuality in today’s society and hence the 50% figure.
Aah, now we have a battle of the dictionaries. I admit that Oxford probably beats dictionary.com, though.
I said morally loaded because:
a) “unnatural” and “abnormal” are a step away from “unholy”.
b) The word “sodomy” is only used in contexts where it’s assumed to be a bad thing.
Re 30b: Really? I wonder why.
aaron/ matthew – the text is called Falling Into Theory – editor is Richter.
more helpful perhaps – i asked my theory professor (his specialty is post-colonial literary theory) if christian criticism was considered a valid academic approach – and if so – who is writing christian/biblical literary theory. i have a recommendation as a result – a text called “The Discerning Reader: Christian Perspectives on Literature and Theory” – editors are David Barratt, Roger Pooley, and Leland Ryken.
cheers, Amy.