21st Century Art

Northern art students produce some very impressive works, some of which demonstrate the tendencies of 20th century art I talk about in class and some of which don't. Please visit the student art exhibit on the 1st floor of Spafford Hall. Which picture in the exhibit did you like best? What did you like about that particular work?

Gendercide--20th and 21st Century Holocausts

"Never again" said the Jews (and many others) about the Holocaust. However, there have been many such tragedies in the 20th and 21st centuries, some of them going on right now. Please take a look at the "case studies" on the Gendercide site (look at the case study drop down menu on the right hand side of the page). Choose one of the studies (or one of the articles on the main page), and comment here on that article/case study. In what way does the information on this site help justify the 20th century's nickname "The Age of Violence" or the 21st century's nickname "The Age of Stupidity"?

Yad Vashem

"One death is a tragedy: a million deaths is a statistic," said Joseph Stalin. Unfortunately, this tends to be the truth. Numbers are a useful tool for measuring things that are too big for us to understand in any other way, e.g., how far it is from earth to the sun. But using numbers often blunts the reality of human tragedies.

The Yad Vashem site tries to make the victims of the Holocaust something more than just statistics. Its database is an attempt to preserve a memory of as many individual victims as possible.

Browse through the database, and look through some of the individual pages of testimony. What do you find interesting/memorable in these pages?

Harvest of Despair

Communism is one of the three "flavors" of totalitarianism we will be talking about this month. It is the most widespread and, in a certain sense, most successful flavor of totalitarianism--and probably the most important for you to understand.

What did the Harvest of Despair video teach you about Soviet Communism that you didn't know before? What insights did you gain on the motivations and methods of those who supported the movement? Did anything here help you understand why this particular flavor of totalitarianism survived longer (and did more damage) than other totalitarian systems?

Communist Manifesto

In the "Communist Manifesto," Marx and Engels suggest some "wonderful improvements" for society. Cite a line from the Manifesto highlighting one of these improvements, i.e, something Marx and Engels want to see changed. Would the change they suggest be a good one? Why, or why not? Do you get a feeling of deja vu when you read through the Manifesto? Any issues raised similar to those in contemporary American politics?

You do not need to read the whole of the Manifesto. Part II (Proletarians and Communists, pp. 135-142 in the Dover anthology) will be sufficient.

Relationships: Good, Bad, and Ugly

The social changes of the last 40 years have left young people (and often older people) with lots of questions about relationship issues, and often a considerable amount of hurt because of unhealthy relationships. In his "Can I Kiss You?" presentation (Wednesday at 7:00 in the Student Center) Mike Domitrz will offer his advice on making good decisions in the relationship area. Please attend Mr. Domitrz presentation and/or read one of my online messages on relationship issues, either Men, Women, and Other Mythological Creatures or Love, Sex, and the Fragile Egos of Men. Post here brief comments about either the Domitrz presentation or the message you read.

Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary

While Candide is the one Voltaire book everyone seems to read, it is not necessarily his best (or most interesting) work. I find amusing the entries in his Philosophical Dictionary. All sorts of interesting observations on everything from history to Islam to beauty to corn. Choose any entry that interests you, and comment here on what you find interesting in Voltaire's observations on that topic.