Letters to the editor

Smashing violence
BY ANNIE MURPHY PAUL
(01/31/00)

Last fall semester I took Dr. Julie Taylor's Anthropology 328: "Violence, Terror, and Social Trauma" here at Rice University. We learned to think about violence in broad new ways. I never found the subject matter "titillating." One of the focal points of the course was to resist exoticizing and pathologizing violence. Not just sick or weird people commit violence; it happens every day in ordinary situations with ordinary people. Violence may be a "sexy subject," given the glorification of violence that permeates America, but the study of violence can give great insights if approached from the right angle and treated with intellectual objectivity.

-- Ben Gran

Yeah, we're not likely targets of random shootings. But one in three women experience rape or assault in their lifetimes. Isn't that number high enough to be relevant? Or at least titillating? But that's not what's being taught in violence studies. In fact, sexual violence and gender-based violence seem to be the redheaded stepchildren of violence studies, dragged out to provide an excuse to contemplate serial killers and other sexy phenomena. In the case of violence against women, the discipline apes, rather than analyzes, a popular culture saturated with images of beaten, raped and murdered women. Why? Don't even get me started.

-- Tina Trent
Emory University

The New Hampshire preview
BY JAKE TAPPER
(02/01/00)

Witty and slightly flirtatious remark complimenting Jake Tapper's writing ability and creativity. Serious juxtaposition of central campaign issue. Slightly wistful observation about the shallowness of the electoral process. Acerbic sign-off.

-- Patricia J. Raube-Wilson
Binghamton, N.Y.

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