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Classical Mythology Too Triggering for Columbia Students
 [REASON] Roman and Greek mythology "contains triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom," students say.Poor little snowflakes can't take the thought of Leda having been mounted by a swan against her will, or Persephone having been carried off by Hades and mounted against her will. Good thing Ovid didn't mention those poor Sabine ladies. Ovid’s "Metamorphoses" is a fixture of Lit Hum, but like so many texts in the Western canon, it contains triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom. These texts, wrought with histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression, can be difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low-income background.Is there any mythology anywhere in the world that doesn't contain "narratives of exclusion and oppression?" You wouldn't think being "persons of color" would make most of them too stupid to comprehend the concept of mythology, wouldja? Having come from a "low income background" when I was a youth I still somehow made it all the way through the Metamorphoses and I read a good part of Ars Amorata. We read Caesar's Gallic Wars in Latin I and/or II, which was also kind of heavy on "exclusion and oppression." I suppose Caesar is in the "Western canon" as well. Gilgamesh, I don't think is. There's no exclusion or oppression in that, is there? Gilgamesh is fond of "sounding the tocsin of war," and he humps the citizenry's daughters, so the gods create Enkidu, who lives with the wild animals until Gilgamesh gets him laid--there are some pretty graphic descriptions of the event in decent translations. Kinda triggery, if you've ever had a sex life that didn't feature surviving the old "fate worse than death." So Gilgamesh and Enkidu become best friends though apparently not gaily, which nowadays is politically incorrect. They go off to fight Humbaba in Lebanon. After they murder the poor monster they go back home. They might murder Humbaba's Mom, too; I can't remember. Maybe I'm thinking of Beowulf. So anyway, they get home and Enkidu dies. Gilgamesh sits with Enkidu and mourns "until a worm fell out his nose." That triggers me every time my nose runs, by golly. I always expect to see wiggly disgusting things in my hankie. And Gilgamesh comments "the sleeping and the dead, how alike they are!" Sometimes I think about that line when I go to bed and it triggers me to wonder what'll happen if I don't wake up. At my age it gets more likely with every birthday. So Gilgamesh gets kinda obsessed with the idea of death and he travels to Dilmun to talk things over with Utu-Napishtim, who's immortal--he lives in an old folks home in Bahrain right now. Utu-Napishtim 'splains to Gilgamesh that immortality ain't what it's cracked up to be and the story ends there. By the way, I checked with old Utu and he said not to worry when I go to sleep. If I don't wake up I won't notice, will I? Unless I'm playing a harp or the temperature rises dramatically. Sure glad that's not in the Western canon. The snowflakes would be dropping like flies. Best to just stick with the Koran. There's no violence in that... Um... Never mind. How about the Bhagavad Ghita? The Tale of Genji? The Upanishads? Posted by: Fred 2015-05-14 |
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