In the Spotlight: Ethnoviolence Class
"What Hurts the Victim Most Is Not the Physical Cruelty of the Oppressor, but the Silence of the Bystander." - Elie Wiesel, Writer and Holocaust Survivor
by Melanie Jarrett
Eth·no·vi·o·lence (noun) – Violence or threat
of violence based on one’s ethnicity, religion,
gender or sexual orientation.
It’s a weighty topic, and one you might be surprised
to learn is the subject of one of the most
popular classes offered in Meadows. “Ethical
Perspectives in Ethnoviolence” is an interdisciplinary,
team-taught course led in part by Dr.
Ben Voth, chair of the Communication Studies
Division, who created the ethical component
used in all sections of the course. The class,
which frequently boasts a wait list, focuses on
equipping students to have a voice in society by
exposing them to global injustices and society’s
role in bringing attention to them. It’s a topic
Dr. Voth, who also serves as a public speaking
consultant for the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum, is deeply passionate about.
“I’ve always had a really high interest in communication
and international affairs and their role in
trying to minimize what I call ‘the worst human
problems’ – in other words, when human beings
intentionally hurt each other at mass levels,”
Voth says. “We ought to be able to stop that.
We might not be able to cure cancer, but we
can agree not to do brutal things to each other,
because those are actions that we have chosen.”
Voth structured the class to give students an
understanding of multiple methodologies and
perspectives on the topic by sharing the teaching
load with two professors from Dedman College
of Humanities and Sciences, Dayna Oscherwitz
(world languages) and Tony Cortese (sociology).
The course culminates with each student producing
a YouTube video centered on bringing attention
to an issue of ethnoviolence – an assignment
that from a practical perspective helps students
hone video editing skills, and from a theoretical
perspective creates a public project that very well
could make a difference in the world.
And though ethnoviolence could conceivably be
a dark subject, Dr. Voth’s approach is a positive
one. “A person’s ability to speak is a beautiful and
amazing thing,” says Voth. “I tell my students: I
don’t know what you’re going to encounter in life
or what you’re going to have to step up and not
be silent about. But it’s going to be important. It’s
going to change your life and maybe your family’s
life and maybe your community’s life.”
Weekly lecture titles range from topics as
ambitious in scope as “Communication as a
Solution for Genocide” to creative takes on the
state of our society, such as “The Cell Phone vs.
the AK-47.” The co-teaching structure of the
course allows students to hear the perspective
of multiple academics with differing theories on
the role of communication to effect change. But
the one descriptor used by students who were
happy to go on record with their appreciation
for the course was: passion.
“There were moments where Dr. Voth would
passionately exclaim that our voices do matter,”
says Caroline White (B.A. Communication
Studies, ’13), who took the class in the spring of
2012. “He cares so much about us that he pushes
us, challenges us, motivates us to believe in
our voice and our own power as humans.”
Adds Taylor Johnson (B.A. Communication
Studies, ’13), “I remember him always saying,
‘You can make a difference from right where
you’re sitting in this college class. The people
that are your age are the people who are going
to change the world.’”
In fact, many of the students who take Voth’s
class in ethnoviolence do go on to work in nonprofit
settings, applying their communication
knowledge to effect change in whatever capacity
they can. Johnson, for example, spent her
summer in London – not as a spectator at the
Olympics, but to research how nonprofit organizations
use the sporting event as a springboard
to create awareness for their causes. This year’s
event was full of performances that highlighted
social issues, from the controversial inclusion
of double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorious
to officials allowing Sarah Attar, the first Saudi
Arabian woman to run track at the Games, to
compete wearing a hijab head covering in observance
of her country’s Muslim traditions. By
bringing her research about such groundbreaking
occurrences and their after-effects back
to the U.S., Johnson epitomizes one of Voth’s
objectives for the course: ceasing to be an
observer of injustices and instead taking action
through communication.
“The one thing I like to say at the outset of
every class is that I’m cynical about only one
thing: cynicism,” Voth says. “I am the most
hardcore idealistic, optimistic person you will
ever meet. All I ask the students for is their
relentless idealism, a willingness to always pick
themselves up out of the dirt and struggle
again for what they think is right.”