The “tiniest children” would award the puppeteer. Old men would delight in recitations of The Iliad or The Odyssey. Two thousand, three hundred and seventy years ago, give or take, Plato posed a thought experiment in his dialogue Laws: Suppose there was a contest in which the most “pleasure giving” performance won top prize? Educated women and young men would prefer tragedies.
#Examone jobs full
To McClung and others, puppetry is like the block of foam - full of value that’s easily overlooked. What in a university is worth preserving? Your answer depends on which argument you believe. An obscure major that does not fill lecture halls or prepare students for local industry might not be worthy of a life raft.īut there’s another argument to consider: that universities are supposed to be places where esoteric disciplines persist - where students can pursue unusual passions and learn things that don’t just prepare them for the work force but enrich their lives. Here in Morgantown, those pressures are bearing down, and the university is making tough choices about what to keep. That’s especially true at West Virginia, a land-grant institution that’s bleeding students in an economically struggling state. Financial imperatives tend to push universities to increase enrollment and emphasize career training.
Teaching puppetry in college defies a certain logic. Now an impending round of program cuts threatens its future once again. It was spared after promising to attract more students. Two years ago, the number of students hovered near zero, and the major was nearly eliminated. It’s a near-unique program that houses a small cohort of undergraduates who relish the chance to spend school time honing their niche craft.Įven so, the puppetry program is in danger. McClung effectively runs West Virginia University’s bachelor of fine arts in puppetry. Christmas ornaments, split in half, make perfect puppet eyeballs. That foam can be carved into a puppet nose and bolted to a puppet face.
0 kommentar(er)
