
The classroom clock says four minutes past the
hour, and the students are restless. Professor Pancho Savery appears in
the doorway and strolls to the back of the room, where he pulls up a chair.
He removes his dark sunglasses. He greets the class in a gentle growl
and throws out a couple of questions.
Is the Iliad an anti-war poem? Is Achilles
a big baby?
A student raises his hand and declares that Homer is neutral about war,
citing the poet’s use of nature similes to describe battle. “He’s
saying war is what it is, not good or bad.” A student sitting across
the table disagrees: Homer wants to glorify war. Another insists the
Iliad is an anti-war satire: “Like M*A*S*H.”
Savery mostly sits back and listens, occasionally
lobbing a provocative question or topic into the discussion like a hunk
of raw meat to hungry young tigers. “Why would Priam sacrifice his
entire kingdom on behalf of his sleazy son who stole somebody’s wife?”
“What if the whole war is just a big misunderstanding?”
Does the discussion sound vaguely familiar? It should. Savery’s conference
class is carrying on one of Reed’s oldest and most venerated traditions:
Humanities 110.
A required course for every first-year student for six decades, Hum (pronounced
hyoom, of course) is the glue that bonds Reedies not only across
campus but also across generations. Hum is a shared intellectual experience
for all students, whether they major in physics or classics. The course
bookends the four years along with the senior thesis. But if the thesis
is a solitary endeavor that culminates a student’s education, Hum
is an exercise in community building that sets the foundation for everything
that follows.
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