Why did we move to Northfield again? Oh that’s right — I have a job. I’ve known that in the abstract for many a month but, having effectively been off for the better part of the last four months, the reality of it only hit me this week when actual professional obligations started to kick in.
I’m only teaching one class this term (we’re on a three-term system, so my teaching load is 1-2-2) and, having come from a place that runs on trimesters, I will not have the shock of moving from 14 week terms to 9.5 weeks terms. All in all, then, I’m fairly relaxed. I’m teaching a course called “Life and Death”, which is basically on the meaning of life. There are 30 students in the class, which is really quite large by Carleton standards, and from what I can tell so far, they appear to be a fantastic group.
Outside of class, there is a fair amount going on academically — I’m supervising a student’s independent study on compromising one’s moral ideals, there’s a three day retreat coming up at a cabin in Wisconsin with Susan Wolf, where we will read a bunch of her unpublished work, I’m attending the lecture series at the U Minn bioethics department, where I’ll be giving a paper in spring, and I’m part of a faculty writing group where we share our work with each other. So, thus far, it’s a satisfying philosophical life.
I leave you with the quotation that I started the class with (from Joel Feinberg):
[Consider] the case of species like the salmon, whose members struggle and strive heroically, swimming against the currents, battered against the rocks, plundered by predators, until the survivors reach the headwaters of their native streams, tattered, torn, and dying. Even then the ordeal is not over, for the males at least must fight off their own intraspecies competitors for an opportunity to entice females to lay eggs, to fertilize them, and only then to die. What is the point of all this effort? Simply to produce another generation of tiny salmon to start all over again, feeding and growing as they head down river toward the ocean, then after a time in salt water, heading back upstream amid the dangers and against all odds, to reproduce and die.
Discuss.
Great way to start the class. I would be interested to hear how the students responded. I suppose the answers would vary according to which tradition they come from – whether it was “western” or “eastern”. Good luck with the class!