Richard Dougherty asks:
Sandy: Why your hesitancy in speaking of the Messiah? How would you distinguish that from requiring Inherit the Wind? Richard Dougherty The Messiah evokes in me memories of my elementary school classes going over to the First Methodist Church every Christmas season to sing Christmas carols and my discomfort at singing "Christ the Lord" (in O Come All Ye Faithful) or "Jesus our Savior" (in I Wonder as I Wonder), both beautiful songs that I was more than happy to sing except for the quoted language (at which I was simply silent). I presume that I couldn't do that as a member of a college choir! I suppose, when all is said and done, I would view my participation as indeed the equivalent of acting, where the lines one reads are merely external, as it were, having nothing to do with one's internal state of mine. If The Messiah is all right, at the end of the day, I should note that I would have much more trouble with Bach's St. John's Passion, which I regard as an anti-Jewish (and not simply pro-Christian, as with the Messiah) work. I would have far more trouble distancing myself from some of the lines, and I am also concerned that in its own way it helps to keep alive the notion that Jews as collectively guilty of deicide. Thie might be an appropriate occasion to ask for help from the list, either onlist or off, with regard to the following: I have been honored by an invitation from UCLA to deliver the Melville Nimmer lecture this coming fall. I have chosen "The Pedagogy of the First Amendment" as my topic, by which I mean to refer to the problems that arise in the very teaching of certain First Amendment topics--e.g., pornography, hate speech, offensive speech--without bringing them--e.g., pornography, hate speech, offensive speech--into the classroom itself (otherwise how would one know what one is referring to when one condemns a completely abstract notion called "hate" or "offensive" speech?). One of the reasons I stopped teaching a course on the "First Amendment" is that I couldn't figure out how to teach *about* pornography, hate speech, or offensive speech, without bringing them into the class, as it were. I would be extremely grateful to any reflections (or anecdotes) any of you might be willing to share about how you handle such subjects. I take it, for example, that none of us is hesitant to offer examples of "seditious" speech, including speech calling for the violent overthrow of the American government. Presumably we're speaking in a third-person voice, and it would be unacceptable for a student to say, "I'm offended by the very presentationn of words indicating a desire to overthrow the government and kill its leaders." But for many contemporary professors, I suspect, we accept such protests if they involve pornography, religious or ethnic hate speech, or the use of certain offensive words. The connection between paragraph two and three is that I would be quite willing to offer the St. John's Passion as an example of "offensive" speech in my class, including repeating the anti-Jewish passages and, indeed, a host of similar passages from what are regarded as "great" works in the canon of Western literature and music. If I am unwilling to sing the St. John's Passion, or would even be upset if it were on the college choir's program, should I be hesitant to assign it as part of my course? sandy _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
