Precious territory

18 years old and 501 miles away from home. It was my first (of many!) semesters at USC and I was working my way through a long list of hopes and fears: shared bathrooms! Dance parties with explicit versions of songs! Meal plans! Term papers! A roommate who hated me before she knew me! (amazing what one little picture in a cheerleading uniform can do) los angeles! Freedom! College!

There was only one class that I knew that I knew that I knew that I had to be in: ARLT 100: The Literature and Art of AIDS in America. The academic advisors in the school of theatre were decidedly miserable, and when I lamented being wait-listed, they couldn’t have cared less. This might surprise you, but I tend to take “no” for an answer. But I just knew that I was supposed to be in that class, and I was able to work my way in.

Professor David Roman’s seminar met on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2pm. We put our desks in a circle. We were required to know and say every other student’s name (n=19?) by the end of the term. We signed waivers acknowledging that we were going to be exposed to explicit and traumatizing content. We only had a few classes together before we met on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Everyone came to class that day and, though David told us we didn’t have to be there, no one wanted to leave.
It is no understatement to say that ARLT 100 challenged and changed me. We were pushed to look at art as activism in ways that I had never done before. We saw depictions of people with AIDS and not AIDS victims. David had limited the class to freshman and sophomore students with the intention of cultivating our ability to read critically and write well. Sadly, I can look back and say he was one of the few professors who created such a powerful learning experience.

Last Sunday I saw the film Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire. David assigned Push in the fall of 2001 and I was completely wrecked by that book. I won’t divulge the plot here, but Sapphire takes you on a journey with a young woman who has enough pain for 100 lifetimes. The story is about a lot of things, but one of the central themes is literacy in all its forms. The ability to read (books, movies, songs, people) and to be read….to be intelligible to someone other than god…is one of the primary exercises of life. To me, reading is an ongoing process of listening and responding and interpreting the signs that are being sent your way.

World AIDS day happened to fall on the day after I saw Precious. Between seeing this film and recalling the World AIDS Day of 2001 where I found myself in a little studio in Santa Monica for “A day without art” I wondered how I could have waited so long to thank my teacher? To tell him how I had gently forced my students in discussion sections to learn one another’s names (and been voted best Annenberg TA that term). How I was able to work with a professor to integrate readings and media about AIDS into a class on social change. How I was forever changed by reading Silvana Paternostro’s In the Land of God and Man.

So I sent the email. I told David some of what I’ve shared here and thanked him for being one of the few professors who saw, heard, and pushed me. I told him that I work with a phenomenal research team and get to engage research that has intrigued me for the last 15 years. And he was a part of the journey that got me here. A day later I got a response that brought tears to my eyes.

David opened my email when he got home from a World AIDS Day event at USC. His students had created an original performance piece and video. It was the first semester he had taught the class since the fall of 2001. My email “made his day” and came at just the right time. We will be getting coffee in 2010 and I cannot wait to tell this teacher that he is changing the world because he set up an environment where I was changed and pulled in ways that brought me closer to doing what I’m built for. That sounds so slushy and dramatic but it’s just the truth. There’s no way around it. So whether you’re being guided or you’re the guidepost, when you can look back and say “I wouldn’t be here were it not for_______________”…. Tell the blank! Send your thanks!