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Terror
and beauty
Terror and that which terrorizes;
beauty which draws us toward its appearance—both challenge
our notion of language. Both stubbornly refuse our intellectual
theories, especially our causal explanations. I am an academic.
I like to think explanation gives us some understanding. But to
explain something that creates terror in the hearts and minds, or
to explain why we are drawn to a piece of music or a painting or
a poem, is not the only way to understand something. It may in many
cases not be that explanation is a primary form of understanding
at all, of those features of human experience that bring as a “sense”
of world, of society, of self.
The concept of beauty and the beautiful are notoriously difficult
to grasp yet so persistent in our utterances about what affects
us and draws our desires in being a human being. The stunned silence
before something that attracts powerfully, as well as the silence
following the horrible, the profoundly traumatic may be related
in ways we do not ordinarily consider. Something beyond words occurs
when we are confronted with forces outside our control. The “unspeakable”
can refer to the searingly traumatic, and to the revelatory power
of beholding.
—Don Saliers, William R. Cannon Distinguished Professor
of Theology and Worship, from his Distinguished Faculty Lecture,
“Where Beauty and Terror Lie: The Poetics of Everyday Life,”
sponsored by the Faculty Council and delivered March 21, 2002
A new language for success
Eighty-five percent of women become mothers. One out of four mothers
is a homemaker. Two out of three mothers age twenty-five to forty-four
work less than forty hours a week. The thirties are considered key
career years. Mothers in the labor force earn 60 percent of the
wages of fathers.
A lot of the gender discrimination in the work place today is discrimination
against mothers. Family-friendly policies by and large have failed.
Most mommy tracks are associated with high stigmatization and high
attrition. The solution is a restructuring not only of schedules
but also of the language of competence and success. We need a redefinition
of ideal work and increased workplace flexibility.
—Joan Williams, professor and director of the Program on
Gender, Work,
and Family at American University Law School, speaking about “‘Choice’
or
‘Gender Discrimination’: Rethinking Work/Family Dilemmas,”
sponsored by the MARIAL Center, April 24, 2002
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