The View | from the University of Vermont

Oct. 15-21, 2003 Teaching Honoree Loves A State Affair The Movies, Books, Students classic descriptions of Vermont found in the many travel guides Oct. 16, 5 p.m. attempting to capture Forum: "Speaking of the state’s essence Freedom" with sound strikingly similar. Stanley Fish, of the Not so the 1,050 University of Illinois electric entries that at Chicago, and UVM comprise a new President Daniel Vermont Encyclopedia, Mark Fogel. Ira Allen a "labor of love" by two Chapel. Information: ex-UVM professors and 656-3056. a Johnson State colleague. Oct. 17, 9 a.m. Women's Tennis: Survey of Influence New England When a group of UVM Championships. medical students got Patrick Gym courts. He doesn't just look tough: English Assistant together to select a Information: Professor Todd McGowan's philosophically topic for their public Athletics informed film courses offer students great health project, instead challenges and rewards. (Photo: Bill DiLillo) of choosing a simple idea that would easily Oct. 17, 3:30 p.m. fulfill the requirement, Lecture: "The they took on the highly Experience of Italian Todd McGowan is a bit embarrassed by the controversial subject of Writers in America" attention generated by his recent Kroepsch- physician-assisted with Luigi Fontanella Maurice Award. But the positive buzz this suicide. of SUNY-Stony energetic assistant professor of English has Brook. Waterman, created among students and faculty made it Room 413. almost inevitable he would receive this formal Peter Ellison Information: 656- recognition of excellence in teaching. Lectures Spitting 3576. saliva samples into test tubes has become such Oct. 17, 7:30 p.m. familiar business to the Concert: UVM Lane women of the Congo’s Series presents "The Ituri tribe that they Faire Winds" with have coined one of musicians Aoife Swahili’s newer phrases Clancy, Christine — kazi ya mate, which Smith, Jean Hewson is accurately, if and Anne Hills. UVM Keeping Research Afloat indelicately, translated Recital Hall. Tickets as “spitwork.” $25. Information: Lane Series Spaghetti Supper Will Benefit Roberson Fund Oct. 18, 9 a.m. Prof's Book Takes a New Look at Conservation Event: "Deaf Awareness Exposition" including Man With The Plans a presenation on Usher's syndrome, a Bramley to Return to Love of Teaching TTY demonstration, and a viewing of "Sound and Fury." Fogel Announces New Office to Facilitate Service- North Lounge, Marsh Learning and Community Partnerships Lounge, Billings Student Center. Information: 656- Visiting Professor to Share Expertise on Medicine 3368. in the Roman Empire Oct. 18, 9 a.m. A Learning Journey Event: "The Joan Robinson Centennial Conference" NHL Legend Ray Bourque to Drop Puck on Start celebrates the 100th Oct. 15-21, 2003 Professor’s Book Thinks Through Leaders of Drive to Create an India- Complexities of Sexual Consent Pakistan 'Peace Park' Meet at UVM In regards to consent to sex, Alan Wertheimer, A senseless and bloody small war has festered professor of political science, argues that the key for two decades between India and Pakistan a question is not “when no means no,” as is so once-pristine part of the Karakoram Mountains. often said — it is when yes really means yes. Saleem Ali, an assistant professor of natural resources who was born in Pakistan, hopes to stop it by putting new life into an old proposal to Wertheimer’s latest book, Consent to Sexual create an international peace park along the Relations, which was recently published by troubled borderland. Cambridge University Press, draws on references ranging from John Rawls to Jerry Seinfeld in a detailed and often technical exploration of what The Karakoram conflict, which is an outgrowth of entails valid consent in a wide range of a bloody dispute in Kashmir, has the dark circumstances. If it’s given that a no is a no, and distinction of being the world’s highest-altitude acquiescence achieved through violence or the war, with skirmishes taking place at roughly threat of it is totally unacceptable, is a “yes” valid 20,000 feet in a largely uninhabited but when a woman is retarded? Coerced? Deceived, ecologically sensitive area. At Ali’s behest, a egregiously or subtly? Voluntarily intoxicated? group of former ambassadors, non-governmental organization officers, executives, students and academics gathered on campus Oct. 9 to create a “I’ve taken a very charged — and for good plan of action that he hopes will end with the reason — subject and tried to bring whatever creation of the “peace park.” philosophical and analytical abilities I have to bear on the subject,” Wertheimer says. “The book is not programmatic. I’m not advocating for Ali, who specializes in environmental conflict particular reforms. I’m trying to help myself and resolution, believes that dialogues to resolve others think through this issue.” comparatively low-stakes environmental problems can help combative states start wider- ranging conversations to begin fixing their more The theory on what constitutes valid consent that fundamental conflicts. But the road to doing this, emerges from his sustained philosophical he concedes, is long and difficult. examination is highly dependent on the particular circumstances of a case. As a philosopher, Wertheimer is deeply concerned with what makes “The meeting went very well, and we’ve got a consent morally valid, which often leads him to plan of action,” Ali says. “The next step is to start diverge (sometimes widely) with past and the campaign — building a Website, establishing present legal conceptions of acceptable consent. a board with public celebrities, applying for grants, and getting Indian and Pakistani experts involved in creating a technical proposal.” “In our laws and moral attitudes, people do not take sexual deception as seriously as they regard commercial deception,” Wertheimer says. “It’s Ali hopes that a formal proposal will be ready for caveat amator, ‘let the lover beware.’ With the public deliberation by the middle of next year. A exception of a few specific cases, the law previous effort by the World Conservation Union generally doesn’t get involved in deception. But (IUCN) to create a transboundry park in the morally, deception should be taken more region failed, so Ali emphasizes the process “will seriously than it is.” be long.” But he and his colleagues take heart in the presence of similar parks straddling borders between Nepal and China, India and Bhutan, Although it masks the subtleties of Wertheimer’s Chinese and Pakistan and elsewhere. particular arguments, his general moral approach is grounded in concern for preserving individual rights and a woman’s (the book focuses on Participants in the UVM meeting to develop the female consent) positive and negative autonomy. peace park plan included Harry Barnes, a former He applies these wide concerns to more than 115 American ambassador to India; Larry Hamilton, hypothetical cases, many of which actually an emeritus professor at Cornell who has been happened, and finds that the morality of consent deeply involved with the IUCN’s mountain work; can turn on the smallest details. Farooq Kathwari, chief executive officer of Ethan Allen and a Kashmiri; and many others. Another participant, John Shroder, a professor at the Wertheimer, who uses law, philosophy, University of Nebraska, is applying for a grant economics, evolutionary theory, psychological from NASA to fund a complementary effort to research, and social research to gird his analysis create a “science park” for high-altitude research of the hypotheticals, is ever-mindful of the horror in the Karakoram region. of rape but also allows that a certain ambiguity and mystery is fundamental to many peoples’ enjoyment of sex. While he finds some Ali, who convened the meeting and will play a circumstances that would never lead to key role in coordinating the group’s endeavors, prosecution morally wrong (as in some cases of says that support from UVM’s Minority Faculty deception), he’s wary of setting the bar of Incentive Fund has been instrumental in his consent so high as to, for example, say that tipsy participation. or retarded women are incapable of consenting to sex. Gaitskill to Conduct Writer’s Workshop Wertheimer finds these sorts of cases, where permissive principles could expose vulnerable Writer Mary Gaitskill, whose short story women to exploitation, and excessively strict “Secretary,” inspired the darkly comedic film of dictates could deprive them of the autonomy to the same title, will be here on Oct. 22. She will make fulfilling choices, particularly difficult, so he lead an open class at 4 p.m. and read from her uses dozens of carefully tailored hypothetical fiction at 5 p.m. in John Dewey Lounge, Old Mill. scenarios to reach tentative conclusions. “All competence is local,” he says. The author of critically praised short fiction collections and novels including Bad Behavior, Retarded women, in his view, probably can give Because They Wanted To, and Two Girls Fat and morally valid consent to sexual relations under Thin, Gaitskill left home at 16 to become a some circumstances; but not in many others. stripper and spent time in mental institutions. Arguments sometimes espoused on college These experiences, she has said, are relevant to campuses that claim that apparently consensual her writing only in that “my experience of life as sex is impermissible when a woman has willingly essentially unhappy and uncontrollable taught drunk too much, go too far — but so does, me to examine the way people, including myself, Wertheimer argues, the surprisingly common create survival systems and psychological ‘safe’ notion that voluntary drinking makes a woman places… in unorthodox and apparently self- responsible for virtually anything that effacing ways.” subsequently happens to her. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Wertheimer is proudest of the book’s sustained Secretary, which chronicles a sadomasochistic examination of this topic.

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