A title like this prompts us to consider the end of civilization. I recently had a professor tell me that if his section were canceled, it would be the coming of the End of Civilization. My response was that I’d like to offer the section again in the 12-week session, thereby postponing the End of Civilization by a few weeks.
That’s not the End I have in mind.
Rather, I want to talk about the end of civilization in that other sense: end as telos, as in teleology. As in, What is civilization for?
I first heard Heinrich Isaak’s choral piece, Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen, in a Renaissance music history course as an undergrad at Southwestern University. The piece (with the tune in the tenor voice) made me cry. I seem to recall telling my classmates that it was the saddest melody ever written.
Walking to Innsbruck Altstadt
Isaak lived from 1450 to 1517, which is roughly from Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press to Luther’s 95 Theses. Not too much is known about Isaak’s life, but we do have at least some of his music, and we have scattered references to his career, here and there. Isaak was so prolific, and so popular and influential in German-speaking lands, that a later writer even called him “Henricus Isaak Germanus.”
This past academic year, I faced a personal challenge, and in view of this challenge, a friend and colleague asked me a very interesting question: What do you tell yourself about all this? Walking the centuries-old Philosophenweg up the Heiligenberg in Heidelberg, I found myself thinking about this question again.
Austin Community College welcomes WEST Austin Studio Tour’s Group Exhibition and “Due WEST” party to our Highland Campus location!
Go West!
WEST is a city wide event that invites the public to visit home art studios, galleries and exhibitions on the west side of Austin. For more information, see west.bigmedium.org.
If you teach at a community college, please take a moment to read this open letter to a composition teacher by Elaine Maimon, president of Governors State University.
Now let’s talk. This past Monday, I taught Plato’s Republic VII for the Free Minds Program. If you aren’t familiar with it, VII is where Plato gives us one of the most famous moments in all of Western philosophy, the Allegory of the Cave. As expected, I helped my students navigate technical issues, like what the various elements in “the story” correspond to, allegory-wise. But there was a moment in that exploration in which students started to see Plato’s point: Education is not about filling an empty but otherwise receptive container, but about “turning around,” the transformation of the student. The icing on the cake, so to speak, was when I wrote the word education on the board, and broke down the etymology: both “to train or mold” and “to lead out.”
When I was training as a psychotherapist, my supervisor (an M.D. psychoanalyst) told me an interesting tale: Researchers had a group of psychoanalysts and psychiatrists review histories and perform diagnostic interviews for every member of the first-year class at a famous medical school. They rendered a diagnosis, where appropriate, and noted the prognosis. Researchers followed these students for 15 or 20 years, to see how accurate the evaluations had been. The result? Guess!
The prognoses were uniformly pessimistic. The students were better adjusted than expected, both as a group (meaning, the percentage of correct diagnoses and prognoses was lower than assessed) but also individually (meaning, severity of dysfunction was generally lower). In other words, both the group and the individual people turned out better than expected, over all.
I’m hosting a group of faculty from Stephen F. Austin University for a faculty-student networking event on Friday, May 10, 1:00 to 2:30 PM, at HLC 4000. Our visiting professors include:
Dr. Joyce Johnston (me) – BAAS, Modern Languages and Communication Studies
Dr. Anne Smith – Philosophy
Dr. Dana Cooper – History
Dr. Christine McDermott – Creative Writing, English
Dr. Dianne Dentice – Sociology
Dr. Leslie Cecil – Anthropology
Dr. Darrell McDonald – Geography
Dr. Kwame Antwi-Boasiako – Political Science
Dr. Scott Hutchens – Psychology
Let your students know about this opportunity to meet faculty and talk about programs at SFA!
Lumberjacks and Riverbats frolicking at HumaniTea Time
ACC faculty: Plan to attend our HumaniTea Time immediately after this networking event! We’ll have tea and cookies, plus time to connect with our SFA colleagues.
SFA Faculty Meet and Greet: Friday, May 10, 1:00 to 2:30 PM, HLC 4000 Lower level
HumaniTea Time: Friday, May 10, 2:30 to 4:00 PM, HLC 4000 Lower level
Have you even wondered what deans do on Easter Weekend? Wonder no more.
Deans Tom and Matthew music up
Yesterday, Tom Nevill (of ADM fame) joined me at Christ Lutheran Church to make music for Easter worship services. You may not know this, but Tom is an ace timpanist — his DMA is in percussion. So, Tom joined me on Christ Lutheran’s new custom German Baroque organ, built Ken Mowell (who put up with my obsessive attention to details like which Krumhorn we should include on the Positiv, the absolute need for both north and south German baroque principals in 8′ and 4′, and how the speakers for the reeds should be installed in the chamber. That’s all organist-speak, incidentally.)
We hit the ground — joined by JayNee Nutting at the piano — with a nifty (and majestic) setting of Thine is the Glory, which you may know from a hymnal. Or if you’re a Handel freak, you’d recognize it from his oratorio, Judas Maccabeus.
From there, we did what any musicians would do for Easter, the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. (Yes, it was a big day, but we knew we could handle it. That’s handle it—get it?)
Hallelujah!
As the postlude, Tom and I turned away from Handel and did the Fanfares from Mouret’s suite in D major. You might know that Mouret tune from Masterpiece Theater — it was the theme music.
Dueling deans, or just good chemistry?
Except that I played the string and trumpet parts on the organ, and Tom played the timpani part on the timpani. We decided that would be easier than playing the trumpet part on the timpani, mainly because the organ doesn’t sound like drums.
So, now you know. That’s the sort of thing deans get up to when you turn them loose on Easter.
In the Florentine Codex, the Mexica refer to the highest level of heaven as Ōmeyōcān, which I translate as “locus of duality.” (In case you’re wondering, this is residue from my sabbatical years ago, in which I studied the poetry and philosophy of the Mexica, whom we call the Aztecs. I get this translation from ōme = two + yō = a substantive-maker (sort of like the German -heit) and cān = location or place.) This highest heavenly level — the thirteenth, to be exact — was so far beyond our imagination that we cannot conceive of it, yet it is the source of the being of the cosmos.
Please join me in congratulating LAHC professors Tasha Davis and Theresa Oh, who received sabbatical awards for 2019-20! Here’s a brief overview of their projects.
Tasha Davis
Tasha Davis, professor of communication studies
During my sabbatical, I am exploring debilitative communication apprehension (CA) among college students, and the treatments and accommodations that can be made available for these students. Along with developing appropriate curriculum that adheres to the course and learning objectives of the Communication Studies Department, I intend my research to be a foundation for training and professional development opportunities for my ACC colleagues, and to promote greater awareness of high CA levels in the college classroom.
Theresa Oh
Theresa Oh, professor of Japanese
This sabbatical is my professional and personal journey. It has been a lifelong dream to immerse myself in the day-to-day life in the city of Kyoto. I plan to take Japanese language courses, practice Zen meditation at Buddhist temples and study calligraphy and vegetarian cooking during the three months this coming fall. I also want to update my teaching materials by researching and gathering digital media on various facets of Tokyo life to incorporate into my teaching lessons.
The Philosopher’s Path
While in Japan I will write a weekly blog for the ACC community. Students will be able to keep up with me as I take the subways, watch thousands of pedestrians cross at Shibuya Crossing, walk the Philosopher’s Path, practice calligraphy, and much more. I hope to come back energized and motivated to share my experiences with my students and colleagues at ACC.
