ATLANTAFive months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath have become a central theme in college courses across America.
- p. Many of the new courses are focused on obvious topics like the history of terrorism, Islam and Afghanistan. But there are less obvious ones, like the nature of American identity, the engineering of tall buildings and the lessons Machiavelli can teach about power and terrorism.
- p. Immediately after Sept. 11, the University of California at Los Angeles created 49 seminars with themes related to the attacks. It is now offering a second round, including “Genetic Engineering Bioweapons: Reality or Hype?,” “Responses to National and Personal Crisis in Modern Hebrew Poetry in Translation” and “Representations of Afghan Women in the Media.”
- p. At the University of Denver, professors are using Hollywood films like “Die Hard” and “Key Largo” as springboards for discussing hostage taking and terrorism; one course uses post-Sept. 11 writings by women as a prelude to students’ revealing their own responses to the attacks.
- p. “If you think of the event as a teachable moment and seize the day intellectually, a lot of good can come from that,” said Brian P. Copenhaver, provost of the College of Letters and Science at U.C.L.A.
- p. In offering such courses now, colleges are not only reflecting society’s preoccupation with a provocative subject but also demonstrating a greater willingnessand speedwithin the ivory tower to tackle current problems than there was a generation ago. During the Vietnam War, for example, many colleges were slow to offer their students courses about Vietnam and the war.
- p. Today, the colleges are also offering traditional subjects in new packages to capitalize on heightened sensibilities about issues like terrorism, religion and the Muslim world.
- p. Educators like Arthur Levine, president of Teachers College at Columbia University, would like to make some of the courses about Afghans and Arabs a permanent part of the core curriculum.
- p. “We teach students about the Western world,” Dr. Levine said, “but they don’t understand the history, geography and culture of the Eastern world. What Sept. 11 should have been is a signal that the canon ought to be expanded to include books like the Koran. Other than the Constitution, no work has had a larger impact on the United States. Five of the last six presidential elections have been determined at least in part by events in the Middle East.”
- p. Colleges and universities are seizing the day in a variety of ways.
- p. At theUniversity of Notre Dame, Renee Tynan,an assistant professor of management, said she felt she had to recast her course on diversity in the workplace. “Since Sept. 11,” Professor Tynan said, “we don’t have some of the pat answers that we once had.”
- p. She said, for example, that her students were debating topics like ethnic profiling and whether it was permissible in cases of public security. “We wouldn’t have had that debate before,” she said.
- p. And at Seattle University, microbiology students newly alert to the perils of bioterrorism are learning to make endospore-contaminated water drinkable with simple laboratory procedures like ultraviolet light, heating and filtration. “The students were sure interested,” said Daniel R. Smith, an assistant professor in the biology department, “and it made for a very topical discussion.”
- p. Professors teaching more traditional courses have also found the events of September a natural fit.
- p. On a recent day at Emory University here, for example, students in Suzanne Werner’s introductory course in international politics talked about the nature of power and why groups like the Taliban might resort to force. In Kenneth Stein’s freshmen seminar on the Middle East, students plunged into the roots of religious fundamentalism and why Osama bin Laden felt threatened. In J. Larry Taulbee’s seminar, “Governing the Use of Force,” students debated whether American bombing in Afghanistan was justified.
- p. Faculty members acknowledge that there are risks in addressing the events of September so quickly.
- p. “By its very nature, scholarship is deliberate, contemplative and methodical,” Dr. Copenhaver said, adding that professo rs like himself may reach conclusions now that they will want to revise in a year or two.
- p. “But that doesn’t mean the academic community has to stand mute until that very valuable resource fully matures,” he said. “The academic experience and capability of scholars is ready to hand and can be applied.”
- p. A bigger concern, some educators say, is how long the current interest in the Middle East and in current events will last.
- p. “The interest in internationalism is cyclical,” said Sheila Biddle, a historian studying efforts by five universities to make themselves more international. Ms. Biddle said interest in international affairs spiked after the World Wars, after Sputnik and after the collapse of the Soviet Union but then dissipated each time.
- p. Dr. Stein, a professor of contemporary Middle Eastern history and Israeli studies at Emory who has been t rying to convey that kind of understanding for 25 years, has seen interest in his classes surge and hopes he can capitalize on it to give students a foundation for understanding current eventsand perhaps even entice some to stay in the field.
- p. “Students are more interested not only in the region but in issues like terrorism,” Dr. Stein said. “But I won’t let them study it without giving them a historical context. I tell them I don’t teach episodes. If you want to understand what happened today, you have to understand what came before.”
- p. In his freshmen seminar, “The Middle East: 1945 to the Present,” Dr. Stein recently compared the writing of the Koran to the writing of the American Constitution to help students understand Islam, and why the Islamic and American cultures are so different.
- p. “The point is that the Constitution was written by individuals and we continue to add to it,” he said. “Can you change the Koran?”
- p. A student volunteered: “No. It is the words of God.”
- p. Dr. Stein asked: “So how does Islam handle modernization? What happens if society has certain strictures about the relationship between men and women? How do you change that if it comes down from the seventh century?”
- p. As the Middle East seminar progressed, Dr. Stein and the 16 students sitting in a collegial circle reached frequently for references to Sept. 11.
- p. “Was 9/11 counterproductive?” one student asked, referring to the huge American c ounterattack.
- p. Dr. Stein said he did not believe that Mr. bin Laden expected the twin towers to fall or the American backlash. Then the professor turned the table, asking, “Did we have the right to respond as we did?”
- p. One student said: “I still haven’t decided. It’s the difference between counterattack and revenge.”
- p. By the end of two hours, Dr. Stein was looking worn but happy.
- p. *"This is the kind of class we should have every week," he said.
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