The infrastructure never got pulled together and the course structure went haywire as a result. There was less class discussion, and less discussion of issues the readings and movies raised, than I initially envisaged. That's always seductive for a crypto-authoritarian like myself but not, I think, the best way to teach this troubling topic. I learned a lot from them, most of it disturbing. But I began to realize that the representation and conceptualization of violence in the U.S. is so thoroughly mystified that the phenomenon itself is obscured.
Violence seems dramatic, colorful, telegenic, intriguing, fun.
It didn't seem fair to ask students to talk about their own lives without sharing experiences I had. Coincidentally, I'd been working with kids in my neighborhood, escorting a group of girl scouts to meetings, for example. But the upsetting stories from these kids fed into the disturbing materials of the class, and vice versa, in an accelerating feedback loop. Also, for student volunteers, I showed over a dozen movies. The specificity of movie images helped bring violence to life.