Inside Higher Ed reports that the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University is flagging gender- and race-related materials in at least 200 courses:
One faculty member — philosophy professor Martin Peterson, who is supposed to teach Contemporary Moral Problems this spring — was asked by university leadership to remove several passages by Plato from his syllabus.As you can probably guess, one of the passages in question is from the Symposium, from Aristophanes’s discourse on human nature and love, which begins:
“First you must learn what Human Nature was in the beginning and what has happened to it since, because long ago our nature was not what it is now, but very different. There were three kinds of human beings, that’s my first point.”I taught that speech several times in intro lit classes. A passage from its close, about love and human wholeness, is often read at marriage ceremonies. You can read the speech in its entirety in Alexander Nehemas and Paul Woodruff’s translation (Hackett, 1989) at Google Books.
More on the Texas A&M story, including e-mails from Professor Peterson and his department chair, may be found at Daily Nous. And there’s a New York Times article (gift link).
comments: 6
Is it time to drink hemlock yet?
🙄
Not before offering a defense.
Plato? Doesn't sound like an American name. Is he some kind of Mexican?
Es verdad. A story that’s sad and apparently true: a student taking some sort of online course in philosophy came away thinking it was plah-to, because he had never heard the name spoken.
I think of the 1960's Beatle Bailey comic strip during UMT, aka, "the draft." Plato was an intellectual who would write long missives over several panels.
He's still there, at least as a bit player.
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