Imagine the following classroom conversations:Student in a world-literature class: “I’d like to write my final paper on Holocaust poetry. I’m trying to decide whether Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s ‘Babi Yar,’ Paul Celan’s ‘Todesfuge,’ or Jorie Graham’s ‘Annunciation With a Bullet in It’ is the best poem. “Faculty member’s answer: “You cannot take up that question unless you recognize that the poems are all flawed fantasies. None are based on fact. The Holocaust never happened. “Student in a political-science or philosophy class: “Which man-made disaster is worse: Bhopal or the Holocaust?” Faculty member’s answer: “There’s no excuse for Bhopal. It didn’t have to happen. But the Holocaust didn’t actually happen at all. Give me a better comparison.”I could generate numerous similar scenarios. A student in a medieval-history course, for example, might contrast a natural catastrophe, the Black Death, with the Holocaust. Nothing in those syllabi might suggest beforehand that the Holocaust will arise, but it can—and does.
Comments are closed.
DONATE
Click to help HAJRTP & the American Gathering.
Comments are closed.