Poor Form? Students React to Death and Dying
I'm up in Hanover, NH today on business and pleasure, and passing through some of my old haunts at Dartmouth, I picked up a copy of the daily campus publication, The Dartmouth. One of the stories on the front page is about a "beloved art history" professor who passed away yesterday morning. Strangely, there was no picture of the professor, Angela Rosenthal, to accompany and highlight the article. Wouldn't that have added a compassionate touch to the piece and made the news of her death more real? She died before her time too: she is survived by her parents.
Though the editors decided to forego a picture of the late professor, they did include one of some frat brothers playing football and another of a "film noir" expert delivering a talk.
Maybe I'm making too much of this, but it strikes me as disrespectful. Surely the untimely passing of a "beloved" professor, on a tiny college campus, is a more momentous event than the recreational activities of a few students or a talk being given on "film noir fatalism" by a "social thought" professor.
What gets me, too, is that in the online edition of the paper, the lead story today is about how faculty diversity on campus fails to match student diversity (my reaction: who cares). The news of the professor's death, meanwhile, gets pushed to the side.
Here is a picture of the professor, Angela Rosenthal. She is sitting in the Sherman art history library (which, coincidentally, is where I am typing out this post).
- Comment (5)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
Comments :
Re: Poor Form? Students React to Death and Dying
I don't think you are making too much of it. I totally agree.
Oct '10
Re: Poor Form? Students React to Death and Dying
Do you regularly read college papers? I don't. I have yet to read one that isn't trash that is of interest only to trashed pseudo-intellectual hipsters (hence why film noir is of more importance than the death of a professor).They do have their uses though:
1) Cleaning up spills
2) Packaging
3) Cheap wrapping paper
4) Recycling
Re: Poor Form? Students React to Death and Dying
chadn737: Do you regularly read college papers? I don't. I have yet to read one that isn't trash that is of interest only to trashed pseudo-intellectual hipsters (hence why film noir is of more importance than the death of a professor).They do have their uses though:
1) Cleaning up spills
2) Packaging
3) Cheap wrapping paper
4) Recycling · Nov 12 at 7:24am
5) Making fun of
6) Fodder for Ricochet posts
I don't usually read college papers, but I do keep an eye on The Dartmouth (see reasons #5-6), and I also read the conservative Dartmouth Review, which you might enjoy. They have an article on the meaning of conservatism in the most recent issue.
Jun '10
Re: Poor Form? Students React to Death and Dying
The problem with death is mourning. The dead don't care, those who mourn do. I object strongly to anyone trying to turn private mourning into public mourning. Civilization's strength with regard to confronting death is that we do not all mourn at the same time, imagine the world if we did. Death in the greater world is just another news item, even if you grant it more import than students playing football or discussing film noir, it should never become anything other than just another news item. I grant that any particular mourner might wish the world to acknowledge in some way their grief, but this is wrong. It is wrong because it turns our public culture into an emotive one that has individuals planting teddy bears at palace gates for all the world to see. Mourning in effect is turned into an experience devoid or any real meaning. This banal sort of gesture comes at the expense of real grieving. In short it is just plain nonsense masquerading as empathy in the guise of roadside crosses, plastic flowers, and photos taped to lamp posts, and I'm sick of it.
Jul '10
Re: Poor Form? Students React to Death and Dying
Cas, Your comment is perfectly stated.
"It is wrong because it turns our public culture into an emotive one..."
For one example, it leads to juries thinking "Why... he should get even more years because he just didn't 'look' remorseful...."
Edited on Nov 12, 2010 at 4:55pm