Today I exposed my students to John Adams's controversial and, some (not me) would say, offensive The Death of Klinghoffer. I think their response was somewhat tamed by the fact that its difficult content--the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro--was presented in a "high art" context. Somehow, genres like opera can really distance people who aren't used to them. Some students just plain didn't like it. I think, in part, that's a gut, aesthetic response. It's weird to hear terrorists singing. Nevertheless, I think it may have placed the conflict in a new historical context for some students.
Today really demonstrated how difficult the 50-minute class is for me. Consistently, just when the conversation really starts getting interesting, I have to end class. When I teach a course like this again, I need to incorporate some kind of online discussion component.
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1 comment:
Kudos for bringing it to class. We spent a week on it (three 50 minute periods), and boy did my class get involved. About 3/4 found the work offensive, and still about 1/3 of the class listed it as their favorite opera studied in my course (Monteverdi's L'Orfeo scored surprisingly high as well).
Sam
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