Beth Loffreda, Selections from Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics
in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder and:
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Loffreda and Gladwell: Applying Social Theory to
an Individual Case
For your fourth assignment I would like you to make an argument about
the way that Loffreda's account complicates Gladwell's thinking on the
subject of social change. In other words, the question assumes that
the events surrounding the death of Matt Shepherd can be explained using
the terms that Gladwell employs–stickiness, the Law of the Few, the
Broken Windows Theory–and so on. But I do not want you simply to
use Gladwell's essay as a way of interpreting Loffreda's. I also want
you to consider the larger implications. What does Loffreda's essay show
that Gladwell has failed to consider or to think through completely? Gladwell
could be correct in many respects, but he still may have overlooked certain
features of social life. What might Gladwell learn from a reading of Loffreda?
A "C" paper will apply Gladwell's terms to Loffreda's text in
a clear, competent, and accurate way. A "B" paper will develop
the discussion of "complications" more extensively. An "A"
paper will explore original and thought-provoking complications while
doing everything that the "C" and "B" papers do as
well.
At this point in the semester your paper should include the following:
1. An introductory paragraph that (a) presents the problem, question,
or context that your essay responds to; (b) identifies the authors under
discussion and their works; (c) gives your readers a statement of the
argument you will make or the question you will pose
2. A coherent, well-developed argument that draws on textual evidence
to support its claims. Textual evidence should be selected carefully and
interpreted in order to guide the reader toward your conclusions.
3. Wherever appropriate, textual evidence that makes connections between
the authors
4. Well-organized paragraphs that present a unifying main idea through
explanation and illustration. Ideally, the first or second sentence of
each paragraph should identify the main idea.
5. Clear, grammatically correct prose.
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Loffreda and Nussbaum: Applying the Argument for
Universal Human Rights to an Individual Case
Drawing on your reading of Beth Loffreda's "Losing Matt Shepard"
and Martha Nussbaum's "Women and Cultural Universals," make
an argument for Matt Shepard's rights. What rights does he have or
should he have? You may decide to make an argument for Matt's special
status as a gay male. In other words, you may decide that some people
suffer from such extreme discrimination that a special class of rights–gay
rights, women's rights, etc.--needs to be recognized and honored. On the
other hand, you may decide that the best way to prevent incidents like
the murder of Matt Shepard is to argue for certain universal human rights
of the sort that Nussbaum discusses. Will Nussbaum's idea of "Central
Human Functional Capabilities" really solve the social problems that
Loffreda describes? Or do such problems require a different, more specific
and pragmatic approach? When considering the Matt Shepard case, be sure
to pay close attention to the many different attitudes and values that
Loffreda encounters in Laramie.
Please give your paper a title that helps to convey your position.
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Loffreda, Nussbaum, and Schlosser: Moving from
Individual Cases to a Theory about Globalization
From one perspective, globalization seems benign, even positive. After
all, no one forces people to eat at McDonalds, or to watch American movies,
or to wear American running shoes. We might argue that when it exports
hamburgers and Coke to other countries, the U.S. also exports democracy,
the rule of law, free markets, technological progress and so on. From
another perspective, however, globalization might be viewed as a form
of cultural imperialism, and possibly also a precursor to economic and
political imperialism. It is quite likely right now that 17-year-olds
in Tokyo know more about the U.S. than they do about their own culture
and history. By contrast, while many people in the U.S. know all about
the latest "reality" shows, the majority are probably incapable
of finding Japan on an unlabeled map.
Of course, these are not the only ways to view globalization. Some observers
might argue that globalization will produce a richly diverse world society.
These people might point out that just as American culture flows into
places like India and China, so the values and outlooks of other societies
flow into the U.S. as well. One good example of this cultural reciprocity
is the "world music" scene.
For your final paper, I would like you to make an argument about globalization,
using as your primary evidence the texts by Loffreda, Nussbaum, and Schlosser.
You may also draw on other information at your disposal, including personal
experience, but you should make detailed use of all three texts. You do
not have to argue "for" or "against" globalization:
you may also choose, instead, to explore the complexities.
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Beth Loffreda and James C. Scott
Thus far in the semester, many of the essays we have read have dealt with issues of racial, gender, cultural, ethnic, (and even cross-species) difference. A recurring question that these essays have asked is: What is at stake when we try to re-imagine ourselves in the position of people who are very different from "us"?
Beth Loffreda asks the same question to make sense of why Matthew Shepard's murder forced several groups to not only re-evaluate their own positions on homophobia; but to question whether or not the members of these groups even fit into the "us" they always associated themselves with. In what ways does the idea of responding from a "hidden" or a "public" transcript allow you to explain the widespread interest in the Matt Shepard murder that another act of subjugation that you read about this semester would not normally get? In responding to the previous question, rely on specific examples and concepts from James C. Scott and another essay of your choice to explain why the behavior and actions of various groups, following the murder of Matt Shepard, were difficult to fit into neat categories.
Ameer Sohrawardy, Rutgers University, Spring 2005
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Tensions between the Public, the Private, and the Personal (Assignment 6)
Both Susan Faludi and Beth Loffreda describe situations that could be considered tipping points: situations that challenged accepted stereotypes of male identity, that resulted in violence, that were taken up by the media, and that became the catalyst for greater public awareness of the issues of women’s equal opportunity, and gay rights, respectively.
In this essay, you are asked to examine the parallels between The Citadel and the world of Laramie, Wyoming, using Gladwell’s theory of social change. Note the key people, messages and situational cues at work. Consider the following:
- What are the parallels between Matt Shepard and Shannon Faulkner?
- How did the media act as a tipping point in each case?
- Which situational factors led to violence?
- How did female and gay identities go against accepted norms of “male” identity? How did stereotypes function to challenge and maintain identities?
- How are larger social tensions reflected in these episodes?
Laura Smith, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Tensions between the Public, the Private, and the Personal.
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Reconciliation (Assignment 3)
Context:
- The “Us. vs. Them” or “I vs. You” antagonism that we have studied in Thurman and Tannen rears perhaps its ugliest head in Beth Lofredda’s study of Matt Shepard’s murder in Laramie.
- Both Tannen and Lofredda express disappointment in their academic colleagues, both for what they do and what they fail to do. The academic establishment may illustrate, for them, Abba Eban’s famous quip about groups that never fail to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
- The core purpose of “reconciliation” as it was conceived in post-apartheid South Africa was to halt the cycle of violence and allow both victim and victimizer to get on with the business of making human life better.
Assignment Question: Can Tannen and Thurman help us understand the causes of homophobia and its violent expression? Can this understanding provide any guidelines for reconciliation between gay and homophobic Americans, “to break the cycle of violence and get on with the business of making life better”?
Questions to Prime the Pump:
- What are the roles of fear, anger, sadness, vilification, and untruth in Lofredda? In Thurman? In Tannen?
- What are the consequences of “dehumanizing” the “other,” as Lofredda suggests that Henderson, McKinney, and some CSU students did? What happens when the second “I” (in Thurman’s “I vs. I”) becomes nonhuman, invisible, nothing?
- When Lofredda looks at the response in Laramie in the first days after the attack, she identifies the widespread reaction of “outrage” among some but the relatively limited commitment to the “hard, slow work of social justice” (437). How would Tannen and Thurman explain these responses? How would you explain their roles in reconciliation?
- What is the difference between what Thurman describes as the “relative self” and what Lofredda describes as the “dehumanized” self of the Other?
Karen Kalteissen, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Reconciliation.
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Reconciliation (Assignment 4)
Context:
- Both Matt Shepard and the women of Iran faced oppressors who sought to obliterate them; however, we meet the women as they struggle to survive in “two worlds” and Matt only after he no longer survives in any world. Most of Matt’s glbtq community, however, lives to struggle on.
- Nafisi writes of the “two photographs” as emblems of the “two worlds” the women lived in. “The second photograph belonged to the world inside the living room. But outside, underneath the window that deceptively showcased only the mountains and the tree outside our house, was the other world, where the bad witches and furies were waiting to transform us into the hooded creatures of the first” (24).
- In your last essay, you looked at the causes of prejudice and oppression, and you may find that many of them, including but not limited to religiosity (not to be confused with religion or spirituality), ignorance, and jealously guarded, insecure power, will also apply to the revolutionary regime of Iran. In this essay, you will look not at the sources of oppression in the victimizers but at the means of surviving and perhaps thriving under oppression in the victims.
Assignment Question: What can the experiences of the glbtq community in Laramie and Nafisi’s students in Tehran tell us about the resources oppressed people can use to survive and perhaps overcome their ordeals?
Questions to Prime the Pump:
- Nafisi clearly believes that art, literature, imagination, color and dreams figure in the women of Iran’s survival skills. Are those things relevant to the communities in Laramie?
- Did all of Nafisi’s students truly live in “just” two worlds?
- What complicates the “two photograph/two worlds” theory?
- What role did community play among the survivors of Laramie and the survivors of Tehran? Is the act of forming community in itself an act of reconciliation?
- What is the relationship between Sheherazade who “breaks the cycle of violence by choosing to embrace different terms of engagement [. . . and] fashions her universe not through physical force [. . . ] but through imagination and reflection” (19) and the literature class in Tehran? Are imagination and reflection “players” in the university community in Laramie?
- What are we to make of Nafisi’s apparent endorsement of lying (17) if reconciliation is indeed predicated upon truth? And what of the versions of the “truth” that came from the journalists in Laramie?
- Are some differences “irreconcilable”? If Nafisi’s students cannot or should not seek reconciliation with the regime, then of what sort of reconciliation is Nabokov’s art meant to facilitate? Was Matt’s life irreconcilable with a homophobic community?
Karen Kalteissen, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Reconciliation.
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