HNY to all...  Interesting thread!   Would love to see many of you in
Philly, however my internist told me I've developed a strong allergy for
MLA.

Wolfgang: given the fact I got basically strip searched at security at LAX
the other day, I think we may have bigger issues these days than email
filters; though in principle I feel your pain.

All others:  I think we better keep using the original text, folks.  And on
the day before assigning the novel:  we better cue the readers (our
students) to the use of that famous term, well over 200 times in the book.
If you name the beast and prep the students, it will diminish potential
problems.

That said, there is another monster term lurking here:  "racist."  This
term can mean almost anything on campus, these days.  It was deployed
widely, in our late election cycle, to the detriment of all, I fear...

I'm curious:  when several of you state categorically that MT, or even
Lincoln, were not "racists," I'm a bit baffled.  What can you possibly mean
by saying that??

All due respect, but outside of a very few (usually religious fanatics),
just about everyone in C19 was tainted in one way or another with what
almost anyone today would consider racist ideologies.  It was just in the
water, I'm afraid: things like, Anglo-Saxon superiority.  Maybe we are
thinking about the many ways people like MT and Lincoln worked for
progressive causes--like supporting a student at Yale.  I have no doubt
that both men changed dramatically in their lives, with regard to these
things.  But if you have determined beyond doubt that they were liberated
100% from such ideas, then you are way smarter than me.

I just thought I would register my confusion about the way this other term
-- "racist"--is being construed, both on this LIST and in our culture
generally, nowadays. I'm do not wish to start another civil war over
whether Twain was a "racist" or not -- maybe just point out that we can
agree to disagree, since the word itself is fraught with danger, to put it
mildly.  --Hal B.


On Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 3:44 PM, Wolfgang Hochbruck <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Does anybody else here find the idea of email filters
> snagging certain terms vaguely disconcerting?
>
> Happy New Year to all
>
> Wolfgang
>
>
-- 
Prof. Harold K. Bush
Professor of English
3800 Lindell
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, MO  63108
314-977-3616 <%28314%29%20977-3616> (w); 314-771-6795 <%28314%29%20771-6795>
(h)
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>