David Clemens * Monterey Peninsula College

*STUDENT GUIDE 2005* Life's Lessons

This fall, in addition to teaching standard collegiate fare like Freshman Composition, Intro to Literature and Critical Thinking, Monterey Peninsula College professor David Clemens will teach two courses offered at no other institution of higher learning: Literature By and About Men, and Literary Forms—The Cinema: More or Less Than Human.

Literary Forms is one of those great liberal arts classes that causes you to realize that the wide range of courses you take for your general education requirement—science, philosophy, film, English, etc.—are all related. The focus of the class is an arcane theory, put forward by author Vernor Vinge, which predicts that in 50 years the intelligence of computers and other technology will surpass that of humans.

The class also touches on everything from the controversial philosophies of Princeton ethicist Peter Singer to the possible future depicted in literature and film from George Orwell’s 1984 and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. By addressing heady questions about human consciousness, the class also gets students thinking about contemporary issues like the abortion debate and the increasing dependence on technology.

In his classroom—which is adorned with movie posters for films like A Clockwork Orange and Forbidden Planet—Clemens talks about his struggle bringing his two handcrafted classes to MPC and how he got into teaching in the first place. Looking more like a comic book storeowner than a college professor, Clemens peppers his stories with quotes from a wide range of authors, philosophers and scientists.

Clemens proposed the More or Less Than Human class to MPC’s curriculum committee in 2000, but it was a few weeks before he was given the green light. The reason for the delay was Clemens’ resistance to a requirement that all classes present knowledge of race, class and gender issues. Believing that there were subjects that simply couldn’t comply with this order—including calculus and chemistry—Clemens refused to submit to the directive.

After a publicity campaign that culminated with a small piece about the struggle in the Wall Street Journal, MPC relented, and Clemens was free to teach the course.

His newest course caused a bit of a stir as well. Literature By and About Men was accepted by the administration at MPC, but rejected as a transferable course by the University of California-Berkeley for having too narrow a focus. Citing other specialty courses—such as similar courses geared toward women—Clemens prevailed in getting the class transferable less than a month later.

Clemens says he believes that the course will be of interest to female students as well as male. “I think both sexes find each other bewildering,” he says.   

The syllabus includes everything from the James Brown song “This is a Man’s Man’s World” to Homer’s Illiad to works by cult author Harry Crewes to the Jim Jarmusch film Ghost Dog. It also features female writers like Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion examining the male condition.

The course is only available online, because Clemens is apprehensive about discussing the material in a classroom setting. “It’s not a therapy session for angry guys,” he says.

Clemens, who also co-owns a women’s clothing store in Pacific Grove with his wife, says he also helped fellow professor Dr. Anita Johnson get a female literature class at MPC—the first in more than 10 years. He says, however, that he believes most literary works address our condition as a whole: “I would agree to this day that most literature is about human experience that transcends race, class and gender.”