AMU Campus Warning on Books/Movie
Sat, Nov17, 2007 - Category: University
AveWatch previously reported on the climate of fear
created by Ave Maria University administration
(1,2).
It seems that some in the administration are
injecting fear into the intellectual culture at
AMU. Yesterday, a campus-wide email was sent by
AMU Executive Secretary Sue Aceto titled
"Warning - movie 'The Golden Compass' ". In the
memo, Aceto warned that "the movie is anti-God"
and that University parents should not buy the
accompanying books by Philip Pullman because
they are "about killing God".
Some AMU students and professors were upset and contacted AveWatch to complain about this "dogmatic advocation by the university" as an offense to intellectual and academic freedom. Dr. Colin Barr, AMU's Chairman of History, responded in a campus-wide email that "... if a University advocates... a refusal to engage critically but respectfully with the serious culture in which it finds itself, it is failing in its mission. Moreover, it is entirely debatable whether Pullman in fact succeeds in his aim; literature is about so much more than a writer's intention. As a matter of fact, Pullman seeks to retell Milton's "Paradise Lost": perhaps we should avoid it, too? After all, many readers have interpreted that great work as something of an apologia for the Devil. (It's not.) As for myself, I have enjoyed the books, and look forward to the movie." Barr went on to say that Pullman's trilogy "is serious literature... to be taken seriously" and that the movie was "an opportunity for discussion, not obscurantism".
"Obscurantism" is "the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known", a hallmark of Tom Monaghan and his Ave Maria administrators. With this kind of engagement fostered by AMU administration in the swamps of south Florida, maybe Monaghan will look to open a branch campus in Mammoth Cave or Carlsbad Caverns.
Some AMU students and professors were upset and contacted AveWatch to complain about this "dogmatic advocation by the university" as an offense to intellectual and academic freedom. Dr. Colin Barr, AMU's Chairman of History, responded in a campus-wide email that "... if a University advocates... a refusal to engage critically but respectfully with the serious culture in which it finds itself, it is failing in its mission. Moreover, it is entirely debatable whether Pullman in fact succeeds in his aim; literature is about so much more than a writer's intention. As a matter of fact, Pullman seeks to retell Milton's "Paradise Lost": perhaps we should avoid it, too? After all, many readers have interpreted that great work as something of an apologia for the Devil. (It's not.) As for myself, I have enjoyed the books, and look forward to the movie." Barr went on to say that Pullman's trilogy "is serious literature... to be taken seriously" and that the movie was "an opportunity for discussion, not obscurantism".
"Obscurantism" is "the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known", a hallmark of Tom Monaghan and his Ave Maria administrators. With this kind of engagement fostered by AMU administration in the swamps of south Florida, maybe Monaghan will look to open a branch campus in Mammoth Cave or Carlsbad Caverns.