Volume 8 Issue 3.3

Regis University

Honorable News Volume 8, Issue 3 1 March 2013

Wise Words from our Headmaster — Dr. Bowie, the Honors Dumbledore

“I’d say that the simple act of seriously asking a question like this already puts us in a certain frame of mind—a mind taken up with a sense of mystery and provoked with feelings of awe and gratitude.”

Inside this issue: We Say, They Say

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Dr. Kloos’ Response

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Dr. Dimovitz’s Response

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Father Feeney Hails Hopkins

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Alumni Corner

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Happy New Year, Lovers of Learning. I hope your semester is off to a good start. I continue to hear wonderful things about you from the faculty, who tend to rave about your contributions in class and the ways in which you enrich the educational experience at Regis. In part, I think your love of learning is rooted in the “great”—or big, or timeless, or overwhelming—questions that you engage across the honors curriculum. In the seminars in particular, you often come up against the most important questions any human can ask— questions such as “Why is there something rather than nothing?” or “What is justice?”

At times, the temptation is to throw our hands up in frustration in response to such imponderable things, but our seminars ask you to engage the questions instead.

What’s the point, you ask? I suppose there are a number of them, but let me share a few insights from the seniors to help you consider what the point might be for you.

Jeff Hassebrock suggests: “I've observed the formation that prolonged engagement [with great questions] brings. If we can just hang in there long enough, such questions can change the way we see the world around us and turn our comforting certainty into questioning compassion. Men and women in service of others spring from such 'profound & prolonged' engagements...” I’m especially struck by Jeff’s sense that profound and prolonged

engagement might help us see the “point” of such large questions, because the faculty believes this as well and thus we continually embrace the questions over the long arc of your undergraduate education.

Another senior, Molly Sullivan, claims these courses “certainly made me more aware of the big questions in classes for my major, and allowed me to see connections and causes I probably wouldn't have thought of before.”

Whenever I’m confronted with such large questions, I turn to the wisest people I know to help me better understand them. We’re fortunate to have the very wise Dr. Howe as our associate director, and here’s how he responds to the question: “What do we get out of engaging the Big Questions, especially those that don’t find their ends in facile answers or answers of any sort? Such is the case with many of the questions involved in Chaos and Order, like ‘Why is there something and not nothing?’ I’d say that the simple act of seriously asking a question like this already puts us in a certain frame of mind—a mind taken up with a sense of mystery and provoked with feelings, of awe and gratitude. Just in the asking of the question we find ourselves participating in our humanity, participating in life as beings who are at once humbled and appropriately confident.

As the French philosopher

Gabriel Marcel might say, much of what confronts us in our lives has less to do with problems that need to be solved and more with mysteries that call for our participation.”

I think Annie Dillard would agree with Dr. Howe, and encourage us all to seek the mysteries that call for our participation.

In short, wherever you are in the Honors curriculum, we hope the great mysteries at the heart of our program are inspiring you to reach new heights in your thinking. Perhaps you’re a senior probing some of these questions as you wrap up your thesis or your final courses, or perhaps you find yourself as a junior, focusing on the challenges that might better promote justice in our world. Or perhaps you’re noting the ebb and flow of transforming forces as they intersect with a world perpetually in chaos and order, or in dialogue with mysteries of identity or meaning in tradition and innovation. No matter where you find yourself, welcome to the pilgrimage we call life!

We Say, They Say: What is Your Favorite Modern Adaptation of a Classic Word (Text, Film, Song, Work of Art) and Why? The discussions on our Honors board continue to excite lively responses and interesting ideas. This round our question came from Dr. Kloos. See what students have said and what Dr. Kloos and Dr. Dimovitz’s answers are, and stop by the Honors study room to see what our next question is by Dr. Fretz.

The Questioner Gives Her Answers — Dr. Kloos, Religious Studies I like whimsical adaptations like Clueless (Emma) or Bridget Jones' Diary (Pride and Prejudice), or even The Lion King (Hamlet), because they see both relevance and pleasure in retelling and adapting stories.

I enjoy cover songs that make me hear the lyrics in a new way; for example, Aretha Franklin covered Otis Redding's "Respect," and switching

the gender of the singer in the 1960s context really changes the impact of the song. I love how Shakespeare's plays can be put into a radically different setting but keep the original language, as with the 1996 film version of Romeo and Juliet, and be completely fresh and authentic at the same time. Finally, I want to draw attention to a not-widelyknown Canadian television series,

Slings and Arrows, about a theater company. In each of the three seasons, they stage a different Shakespeare play: Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. The series is clever, if a bit ridiculous at times, and it picks up Shakespearean themes in the various plots.

Ideas for what our next conversation question should be? Let us know! Email Connie at cgates@regis.edu, or James Persichetti at jpersichetti@regis.edu. And don’t forget to come by and add your thoughts to the board.

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Honorable News

The Dimovitzian Review — Dr. Dimovitz, English Department I could give a list of films that are terrific literal adaptations of novels, such as Graham Swift’s Waterland, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, or Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. But I won’t do that.

Instead, I would say that the best film adaptations are usually of novels that were not that good in the original form. Mario Puzo’s The Godfather has a horrifically leaden prose style, but

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is a tightly developed cinematic experience.

Stanley Kubrick was a genius at this, and his films not only adapt mediocre works of literature, but he often tosses out everything but basic premise in his transformation. I would go back repeatedly to Kubrick’s The Shining, whereas once through Stephen King’s The Shining is really one too many. Kubrick’s 2001: A

Space Odyssey is a meditative masterpiece, while Arthur C. Clarke’s short story The Sentinel reads like most science fiction.

The only place where I would say he does not improve is on Lolita, although when going up against Nabokov, one should be very careful how one treads. At its best, adaptation is destruction, and the more destructive the change, the better.

←“I would say that the best film adaptations are usually of novels that were not that good in the original form.”

“He marched in place at the podium, making trumpet noises as he went.” ↓

Father Feeney Hails Hopkins — James Persichetti, class of 2015 and Andy Horner, class of 2016 Every year Regis University hosts the national Gerard Manley Hopkins conference in the spring, and every year we get amazingly brilliant scholars who come to talk Hopkins, poetry, maybe a bit of Shakespeare here and there, and more. Last year I had the pleasure of meeting two such scholars.

The first was a lovely woman by the name of Irene who spends a third of her time in Dublin, a third in London, and a third in Denver. Most notable for her discussions on acting and her chronic longing “to skateboard,” Irene is passionate about her studies and full of youthful spirit. She also was a major proponent for me keeping my hair dyed blue and purple, much to Dr. Bowie’s dismay. She talks about poetry with a certain twinkle in her eye, and in the warmth of her words you can hear the magic of Hopkins’ work. They speak to the soul.

After Irene I was graced with the wonderful opportuni-

Volume 8, Issue 3

ty to meet a scholar by the name of Richard who also came to speak to Dr. Palmer’s Shakespeare class last year.

Richard sat down with the class and told us a story of when he got in a car crash. In the moment of trauma he said he could hear Hopkins’ verses—for he studied them so long—speaking to the very emotions he had to cope with.

Hopkins changed his life and lived with him. Hearing Richard recite the poet’s work was like fire. You could see how the energy of the poem inhabits his entire body in the way he moved, the expression on his face. The wonder and awe was real and present in the very classroom, and though Hopkins wrote about a countryside across the sea, I could see the cliffs and felt the very same longing because Richard gave it life.

Hopkins poetry cannot just be read. It must be heard. It must be experienced. My first experience with the poet was from these scholars, and they

are coming back this year.

Allow yourself to be humbled and inspired by the vivid and captivating words of Gerard Manly Hopkins and come see the conference March 22-24, Friday through Sunday. You will have the incredible opportunity to listen to and see Fr. Joseph Feeney, Irene Kyffin, Richard Austen, and several more electrifying scholars. Not only that, but you also have the chance to speak to them personally, scholars who have come from all over the world to Regis.

—James In a recent trip to St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, I had the privilege of listening to Fr. Joseph Feeney speak about a poet and fellow Jesuit of whom he holds high regard: Gerard Manley Hopkins. Being one of the leading Hopkins’ scholars, this Reverend is one of the most enthusiastic readers I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing.

As he gave his thoughts on Hopkins’ life and works, he marched in place at the podium, making trumpet noises as he went, explaining the nuances of each phrase, as if he himself was “charged with the grandeur of God.” Each time he spoke (sometimes acting as multiple people to narrate a story), he clearly expressed his passion for Hopkins. Luckily for Regis' faculty and students, they will have an opportunity to hear Feeney speak at the National Hopkins Conference, hosted by the university, from March 22-24.

—Andy

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Alumni Corner

Newsletter requests, ideas, submissions? Contact

Congrats to Regis grad Honors Alumnus Laurel O. Defibaugh James Persichetti at who entered the first Regis School of Pharmacy class and will jpersichetti@regis.edu for graduate this year, already gainfully employed at Wal-Mart.

Stacey Smith, also graduating with the inaugural class, is in the in the process of interviewing at Camp Pendleton naval base, the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and other residencies in New York, Chicago, and Denver.

We continue to hear about Regis Honors Alumni success, because let’s face it, Regis Honors students rock.

further information.

Regis University Honors Program Address: Carroll Hall 121 3333 Regis Blvd H-16 Denver Colorado 80221 PHONE: 303-458-4360 E-MAIL: honors@regis.edu WEBSITE: www.regis.edu/honors

Attention Honors Students! 

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Spring Fling March 20th at 6:30 in the Regis Room (There will be Chipotle) Hopkins Conference March 22-24 (see page 3) Jim Daniels, Poet & Writer, author of over 30 books, will come speak in the Clarke Hall Atrium at 7:30, March 11th Summit call: If you are interested in meeting potential incoming Honors students and want to help answer questions they might have, contact Dr. Bowie about the Honors Summit held March 25th.

Theses Defenses will begin on Above: Jim Davis, poet and writer the 18th of March