for next class: Hunt/Guantanamo/Literacy Narrative

Here’s the homework assignment for next class:

— Read Chapter 2 of Inventing Human Rights: "'Bone of their Bone:' Abolishing Torture."
— Watch The Road to Guantanamo (on DU Course Media)
— Write write a response to ONE of the following two prompts:

Prompt 1. In “Bone of their Bone,” Hunt writes:

It might seem rather a stretch to link blowing one’s nose into a handkerchief, listening to music, reading a novel, or ordering a portrait to the abolition of torture and the moderation of cruel punishment. Yet legally sanctioned torture did not end just because judges gave up on it or because Enlightenment writers eventually opposed it. Torture ended because the traditional framework of pain and personhood fell apart, to be replaced, bit by bit, by a new framework, in which individuals owned their bodies, had rights to their separateness and to bodily inviolability, and recognized in other people the same passions, sentiments, and sympathies as in themselves. “The men, or perhaps the women,” to return to the good doctor Rush one last time, “whose persons we detest [convicted criminals], possess sould and bodies composed of the same materials as those of our friends and relations.” If we contemplate their miseries “without emotion or sympathy,” then “the principle of sympathy” itself “will cease to act altogether; and . . . will soon lose its place in the human breast.” (111-12)

To judge by the treatment meted out to those accused of being “enemy combatants” in The Road to Guantanamo, our culture’s “framework of pain and personhood” is falling apart again, to be replaced this time by one in which the principle of sympathy has indeed “lost its place in the human breast.” How does The Road to Guantanamo, through its artistry, seek to fight against this loss? That is, how do the filmmakers use the medium of filmic storytelling to create the film's own “framework of pain and personhood,” wherein the principle of human sympathy is returned to its proper place. And via what verbal and/or visual storytelling techniques does the film "teach" that framework to its audience?

(Your response should be about 250-500 words in length. Please email it to Catherine and John.)

Prompt 2. Complete the literacy narrative that you started today in class. Tell the story of an experience of reading that you’ve had that significantly changed the way that you view yourself, the world or some aspect thereof.  And try to write your story in such a way as to grip your readers, so that you’re writing, too, has a powerful, transformative effect. And remember: you're not trying merely to summarize what you read; you're trying to tell the story of your experience of reading.

(Your story should be at least 250-500 words in length.  Please email it to Catherine and John.)

Please remember that you are to respond EITHER to Prompt 1 OR to Prompt 2, NOT to both. However, even if you're writing to Prompt 2, please be sure to read Hunt and to watch the film.

A note about DU CourseMedia

• To access CourseMedia, go here. 
• Log in using you student ID and passcode (i.e., the same ID and passcode you use for webCentral and MyWeb).
• Click on the image beside “SJUS videos.”
• Click on the image beside “Road to Guantanamo”

Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness

For our next class meeting, please complete the following:

1. Please read the chapter titled "Torrents of Emotion" from Lynn Hunt's Inventing Human Rights.
2. Please read pages 113-166 of the selection from Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness that I’ve put up on Blackboard. (It's in the folder labelled "PDF files.")
3. Please write a brief essay (say, between 250 and 500 words) in which you explain how Day's narrative dramatizes at least ONE of what, in class, we were calling "the paradoxes of human rights." You’ll recall that we discussed how, in order to promote justice, human rights must paradoxically be both natural and social, both universal and particular, both equal and respectful of difference, both individually held and collectively held. As you’ll see, Day struggles with these paradoxes in her own thinking and in her own life; indeed, these struggles make up the themes of her story. So pick out what strikes you as an especially interesting moment in that story and interpret it as you would a piece of literary fiction, say, or a poem or play, by asking: What does this specific moment in the story have to say about one of the book’s larger themes?

Please email your responses to me and to Catherine by the start of class on Tuesday.

Also, please note that I added an “extra” chapter to the PDF. The portion of The Long Loneliness that I’m asking you to read is the climax, so to speak, of Day’s spiritual autobiography; it recounts the religious conversion that she underwent before she undertook the work for which she became well known. But since I thought that some of you will want to read about this better-known work, I included the chapter that describes the founding of the Catholic Worker Movement. You’re not required to read this last chapter (titled “Peasant of the Pavements”), but it’s there if you’re interested.

Speaking of which, here’s a bit of background on Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement:

The Long Loneliness is the spiritual autobiography of Dorothy Day, a convert to Catholicism who, along with a fellow named Peter Maurin, founded what became known as the Catholic Worker Movement. The group started out in 1933 by publishing a newspaper (called The Catholic Worker, still in publication today) whose mission was/is to speak out against poverty, war, and injustice of all sorts. They then opened what they called a "house of hospitality" on NY's Lower East Side, where the poor could find food, friendship, and a respite from the world outside. Catholic Worker houses soon began to spring up all around the country and eventually around the world. (Even today, you can find a Catholic Worker house in Denver (it's at 24th and Welton), and members of the local Catholic Worker community serve meals at the Saint Francis Center.) 

Catholic Worker communities are not an official part of the Catholic church; they're independent of the church and, indeed, largely independent of one another; they're made up of individuals who've decided to make common cause with the poor, and to do so outside of any official institutional structure. 

Day herself is a fascinating person. Prior to her conversion, she was a member of the bohemian crowd in Greenwich Village, where she hung out with lots of famous and soon-to-be-famous poets, playwrights, painters, and the like. She was also deeply involved in the radical politics of her time, especially that of the Communists. In fact, she made her living as a journalist writing for various leftwing publications.  

At the age of about 30, however, Day underwent a profound religious experience, converting to Catholicism and leaving behind the political ideologies of her youth as well as many of her Greenwich Village friends. Soon, she started the first Catholic Worker community, channeling her activist energies into work on behalf of the poor and her literary energies into The Catholic Worker newspaper. Although, in her day, she was frequently in conflict with the powers-that-be in the Catholic Church, she has recently been named a candidate for sainthood. 

If you’re interested, you’ll find an old television interview with Dorothy Day here. Not only is the interview quite interesting in own right, but, because it was filmed in the early 1970s, it features some truly awesome clothes, hair, and visual effects.

For our first-day thought experiment

From “How to Really Save the Economy,” by Robert J. Barro, New York Times, September 10, 2011

I believe that a long-term fiscal plan for the country requires six big steps.

Three of them were identified by the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction commission: [1] reforming Social Security and Medicare by increasing ages of eligibility and shifting to an appropriate formula for indexing benefits to inflation; [2] phasing out “tax expenditures” like the deductions for mortgage interest, state and local taxes and employer-provided health care; [3] and lowering the marginal income-tax rates for individuals.

I would add three more: [4] reversing the vast and unwise increase in spending that occurred under Presidents Bush and Obama; [5] introducing a tax on consumer spending, like the value-added tax (or VAT) common in other rich countries; and [6] abolishing federal corporate taxes and estate taxes. All three measures would be enormously difficult — many say impossible — but crises are opportune times for these important, basic reforms.


From “White House Outlines $467 Billion In Savings To Pay For Jobs Act,” by Sam Stein, Huffington Post, September 12, 2011

The Obama administration announced on Monday a series of tax policy changes that officials say will pay for the costs of the president’s job creation plan.

The provisions, announced by Office of Management and Budget Chair Jack Lew, would raise a projected $467 billion over the course of 10 years. The American Jobs Act, as outlined by the president last week, will cost an estimated $447 billion.

The primary piece would be to limit itemized deductions for individuals making over $200,000-a-year and families making over $250,000 -- which Lew said would raise $400 billion over 10 years. Another pay-for would be to treat carried interest as ordinary income rather than capital gains, which Lew said would raise $18 billion. The White House is also calling for the end of tax subsidies for certain oil and gas companies, which the administration believes would raise $40 billion, and the axing of a tax break for corporate jet owners, which it believes could save $3 billion.

From In the Shadow of No Towers, by Art Spiegelman

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Our Community Partners

Here are some videos about our community partners. Check them out as you think about your volunteer preferences. (There are a bunch more videos on our YouTube channel and in our Vimeo album.)

El Centro Humanitario
Tribute to Minsun Ji at El Centro Humanitario from Eric Firnhaber on Vimeo.

El Centro Humanitario promotes the rights and well-being of day laborers in Colorado through education, job skills and leadership development, united action and advocacy. Our goals are to develop a sense of community and self sufficiency among workers and to foster worker ownership over El Centro.

The GrowHaus

Everyone deserves a healthy meal. But in some communities, healthy food simply isn't available. The GrowHaus is a non-profit urban farm and market in one such community - northeast Denver’s Elyria-Swansea neighborhood. Our mission is to support the growth of healthy, self-empowered communities in Elyria-Swansea and beyond through education, improving food access, and urban agriculture.

Human Trafficking Clinic

Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing human rights violations in the world today. Around the globe and in your backyard there are anywhere between 12-27 million people forced to harvest crops, sell sex, make clothes, and work in other inhumane situations without pay. Even though slavery has existed for centuries, today’s response to human trafficking and modern slavery is plagued with term confusion, unreliable data, and lack of inter-organizational communication. The Human Trafficking Clinic . . . aim[s] to provide research that improves inter-organizational cooperation and accountability, influences policy, and raises awareness in combating human trafficking and modern slavery.