A Monumental Course

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I wish to take issue with Amy E. Schwartz for the statement in her review of Phyllis Keller's Getting at the Core: Curriculum Reform at Harvard (October 30, 1982) concerning "Monuments of Japan" (Literature and Arts B-23). Ms. Schwartz suggests that this course, offered for the first time last fall, is a "strange compilation" and implies that it is a source for the typical frustrations of the undergraduate when dealing with the Core.

I do not wish to address the more general issues of the suitability of the Core curriculum directly but rather to defend one course which has been slighted in passing. As a partner with Professor John M. Rosenfeld in teaching this course, permit me to shed some insight into its rationale.

First, it should be pointed out that no student who actually took the course expressed the particular grievance that Ms. Schwartz claims. Indeed, many students found that it offered insights into the buildings and aesthetics not only of Japan but also of the environment around them. Second, the concept of selecting a limited number of monuments from the long and diverse cultural tradition of Japan has a legitimate scholarly and heuristic basis. By focusing on carefully chosen masterpieces it is possible to study in some depth certain sets of circumstances--artistic, technological, social, political, and religious--which spawn major monuments in civilization. This approach has the advantage of controlling a potentially vast body of material, much of it written about with exotic, difficult terminology, by selecting exemplary temples, shrines, castles, villas and even townhouses such as the eighteenth century Kyoto residence now at the Children's Museum in Boston.

There are admittedly disadvantages in this approach, such as potential loss of thematic or historical continuity, but being aware of this problem is the first step for countering it with more reading, or by taking specialized courses from the ample offering in the arts of East Asia at the Fogg.

But please do not rely upon my opinion. It is unashamedly biased. Instead come along next spring when we shall offer the course again. Maybe then you can decide whether or not it is a "Monument to Futility". William H. Coaldrake   Senior Teaching Fellow   "Monuments of Japan"