Mama Had Heart

Ciao-ing Down

Dawn Conner ["Insider's Guide to the World," October] might (or might not) have preferred my LSA home in Siena, Italy in 1983, when Mama insisted that I clean my plate at every meal. One day I returned home as usual to find Mama preparing the daily feast by carving small slices from a large raw heart. I prayed aloud in my practiced Italian, "That's not for us, is it?"

"Oh, no," she said, smiling, as she removed the small slices from the carving board and deposited them in the cat's dish.

I laughed at the silly thought that she would serve a heart for lunch. But then she lifted the larger mass from the carving board and placed it in a roasting pan. "This is for us," she said.

You know, it tasted just like brisket.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Bestiality Well Covered

EDWINB. BROOKS '36 ARGUES [Letters, October] that the new Intro- duction to Gay and Lesbian Studies course at Dartmouth is discriminatory because it excludes the study of such topics as bestiality, sado-masochism, festishism, and heterosexuality. As one of the co-authors of the proposal to add this course to the curriculum, I want to assure Mr. Brooks that the topics he mentions are, unlike Gay and Lesbian Studies, already amply covered in existing courses.

A student wishing to study bestiality, sado-masochism, and fetishism can enroll in Psychology 24, Personality and Abnormal Psychology. This course does not apply to gay and lesbian issues because, as the American Psychiatric Association rightly acknowledged in 1974, homosexuality is neither abnormal nor a mental disorder.

Many courses in the curriculum deal with heterosexuality as a central topic, and many others include it in significant ways. The most obvious courses include Biology 2, Human Biology; Comparative Literature 46, Psychology, Society, and Literature: The Family; Religion 27, Sexuality, Society, and Religion; Sociology 27, Perspectives on the American Family; and Women's Studies 10, Sex, Gender, and Society; not to mention all of the literature courses that cover novels, poems, and plays about heterosexual love.

If Mr. Brooks or any other reader would like to know more about the exciting scholarship being published in the growing field of Gay and Lesbian Studies, drop me a line. I'll be happy to send along an extensive bibliography that refers to the important material we will be teaching in our new course.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DRAMA SAMUEL.D.ABEL@ DARTMOUTH.EDU

How About the Lorax?

WHILE READING ABOUT BILL Clinton's visit to the campus ["The President Gives Commencement a Hand," September] I noticed that Yale's alumni magazine had a picture of Barney on the cover. Is this just another example of Yale's ability to attract more intelligent and relevant personalities to their campus, as my wife (Yale '75) has suggested, or is there some competition going on for cartoon characters?

May I suggest that in the future we reserve June in Hanover for guests who have contributed something of value to our community?

DUNEBEAR@AOL.COM