The Voice

Issue date: 2/12/07 Section: Inside WCC

Media Credit: Courtesy of Elisabeth Thoburn, WCC WCC humanities teacher Elisabeth Thoburn stands next to an Olmec monument in southern Mexico.

Five years ago, humanities teacher Elisabeth Thoburn started a monuments and cultures class here at WCC. She did this in order to provide more multi-cultural humanities class opportunities to students. She explained that the other humanities classes at WCC are "usually focused on the Western world" and how they are usually "European and American-centric." The monuments and cultures class Thoburn created is designed to be truly multicultural. In the class, students cover monuments from around the world in order to gain a better understanding of the cultures that built them.

"We start in France and America, and then we go to China and India, and then to Saudi Arabia" said Thoburn.

Thoburn chose monuments because she believes they offer a deep understanding of the people who made them.

"[The people who built these monuments] put so much labor and resources and sometimes decades, if not hundreds of years, of time into the monument that they really say something." What these monuments say can be a combination of political, social, and international issues.

Thoburn explained how a true monument contains an issue. For example, Monticello, the house Thomas Jefferson built for himself and one of the monuments covered in the course, is packed with issues.

"That [house] speaks about slavery and democracy and the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans…" she said.

Likewise, she told how the Eiffel Tower contains an assortment of issues that aren't usually associated with it. She told how it speaks of Eiffel's engineering achievements, the industrial revolution, France's loss in the Franco-Prussian war, "and, before you know it, you have a monument that stands for a whole era and a whole nation."

Not all of the monuments covered in the course are secular, though. About half of the monuments are religious. Thoburn explained how covering a monument can be an excellent way to understand religions, and how in the course they cover monuments made by six different religions. Religion has always been a driving force for people to build spectacular monuments, and throughout history they have constructed monuments to honor what they believe in. Learning about these monuments can offer insight into these diverse beliefs.

Thoburn recalled that when she decided to start teaching the class five years ago, she barely made the cut with 12 students. "I called every student I knew…and asked them to please please please take this class." From its modest beginnings, the class has grown by leaps and bounds. Now it is thriving: Thuoburn has just opened the fourth section. Thoburn teaches all of these sections, although she believes that in the future team-teaching could be a possibility. Thoburn also supplements the class with fieldtrips. A few weekends ago she took some of her students on an architectural tour of downtown Ypsilanti.

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