UA News

An upcoming event, "Offensive, Deliberately So... Literary and Cultural Taboos, Then and Now," will consider issues related to race, gender and sexuality.

The second presentation in the University of Arizona College of Humanities' new community series will be held in December.

"Offensive, Deliberately So... Literary and Cultural Taboos, Then and Now," which is part of the "Unsettling Certainties: Conversations in Humanities" series will be held Dec. 7 at 6 p.m. at the UA Poetry Center. 

This event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Dorothy Rubel Room of the center, which is located in the Helen S. Schaefer Building, 1508 E. Helen Street. 

In "Offensive, Deliberately So: Literary and Cultural Taboos, Then and Now," humanities faculty will offer new perspectives on how to approach modern incivility such as the cartoon caricaturing of the Prophet Mohammed, blasphemous lyrics in rock music, stand-up comedians capitalizing on stereotypes of race, gender or sexuality, and uncomfortable jokes. 

The series "is exciting and emblematic as it expresses all that Humanities has to offer our communities – our sense of place and purpose here in Tucson and beyond," said College of Humanities Dean Mary Wildner-Bassett. 

Featured faculty membes are: Fabian Alfie, an associate professor in the French and Italian department; Albrecht Classen, a German Studies professor and UA Distinguished Professor; Michael Lippman a visiting assistant professor the classics department; Thomas P. Miller, a professor in the English department; and Elizabeth Zegura, an associate professor in the French and Italian department.

Brief, informal chats on texts by Rabelais, Plato, Aristophanes, Handke and medieval Italian song and modern age jokes will set the stage for an understanding of the role of offensive literature and rhetoric then and now.

"We use ‘unsettling' as both verb and adjective. We want to ‘unsettle' what can, could or should be reconsidered as a certainty," Wildner-Bassett said.

The series' objective is to enable the academic community to engage with other life-long learners to understand issues related to race, language, and art, Wildner-Bassett said.

"What ties us together, what unsettles us, what is certain? Through this program, teachers, students, and lifelong learners in the Humanities share their knowledge and skills, ready to engage in conversation about real-world issues that face us daily," Wildner-Bassett added. "It is with certain pleasure and enthusiasm that I invite the Tucson community to participate in these ongoing conversations."