Inauguration Day Quandary

This semster I’m teaching a “Philosophy of Race” course that meets on Tuesdays/Thursdays from 12:30-1:45 in the afternoon… which means we will be meeting in the middle of the Obama inauguration next week! I’m debating whether or not to cancel class, or at least to forego my syllabus schedule (would’ve been Bernier and Kant) in favor of watching the inauguration in class with my students. I mean, it’s a Philosophy of RACE class, for crying out loud! The problem is that our classes only began on Wednesday of this week, which means that next Tuesday is only our second class meeting… which means it’s really our first substantive class meeting since I’m one of those profs who does “syllabus and overview” on the actual first day of class. According to MSN anyway, all kinds of people are skipping work to watch Obama.

Any advice?

3 comments on “Inauguration Day Quandary

  1. MJG says:

    I think if we can take a day out of Existentialism to have an impromptu brainstorming session to come up with a community event regarding conversation about the 2008 election, then the Inauguration ought to be something your Phil. of Race class should watch together, if for no other reason than it will place your conversation in its modern context. It will be a monumental event; I can’t imagine yourself ever regretting pausing one class for it.

  2. Doctor J says:

    Good point, MJG. I had forgotten that we took that little detour in the Existentialism class… and everyone survived just fine.

    Btw, I was missing your blog-lists, which are quite clever imho, but Charlotte alerted me to your new blog address. Glad to see you hadn’t given up the ghost.

  3. MJG says:

    Yeah, I made the jump back to my old Livejournal. I started writing in it the summer after my sophomore year in high school and have kept it up regularly since then. I have made the jump to Blogspot and WordPress a few times but always find myself returning back home, for continuity’s sake, mostly.

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