 |  |  | Posted by: Tamara Suttle
Institution: Private Practice
April 24, 2009, 12:07 pm |  |
Seth, I'm sure your Psych of Evil class is almost finished. However, I suspect it will be such a hit that you will teach it again, so I'll add some fragmented suggestions for future classes. Although you are asking for non-Holocaust literature related to evil, I want to mention Facing the Extreme by Tzvetan Todorov. This text, I think more than any other, underscores the subtle acts of goodness and evil. And, don't forget to check out Foster Kennedy's 1942 journal article on the eugenics movement in the United States -- years before the Nazi's began their eugenics movement. Good intentions and all . . .
If you are looking for poetry to include, Maya Angelou wrote the poem, "A Brave and Startling Truth." I also see hate crimes as being evil that is closer to home and is often minimized / seen as not-as-bad as evil. If that fits with your thinking, then there are racially motivated and GLBT-motivated hate crimes to read about. We've just passed the 10 year anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings here in Colorado, so I think of that and similar killings -- Virginia Tech and the Kentucky killings. There's also the book, Education for Extinction by David Wallace Adams, that chronicles the American Indians' Boarding School Experience -- again, more subtle forms of evil. Not sure you want to cover colonization . . . I know the class has to end at some point. However, Canada and Australia certainly have their own histories to add here.
And, finally, from a book I own, called Spiritual Literacy (pg. 408-409) by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, there is an interesting entry on Shadow. It quotes a variety of people including, Robert Bly, a Jungian Analyst names Robert Johnson, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Mahatma Gandhi, among others. In that same entry, "Evil is unspectacular and always human . . . The shadow lives in our snubs, grudges, criticism, and self-pity." by poet W. H. Auden. And, "The full and joyful acceptance of the worst in oneself may be the only sure way of transforming it." --Henry Miller.
Seth, not sure if any of this of use. Am hoping to be able to find your syllabus on line and take a peek!
Tamara Suttle
tamara@tamarasuttle.com
http://www.tamarasuttle.com/
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