There's been a great deal of written discussion on the forum
about the "Muslim
woman must remove veil to give trial evidence" article, and in
spite of the fact that most people will to some extent probably feel
"aren't we analyzing this more than it will bear?" I want to
continue thinking about it, by moving to an oral consideration.
You've read quite a number of varying views about each of the
questions I posed, and what I want to do this afternoon is give all
of us a chance to think together about those responses, and why
there was such variation among them -- and, of course, what they
might tell us about how language works (and how it's working on us).
I'm going to structure the discussion with the aid of the 3X5 cards
everyone filled out back at the beginning (I suspect there are a few
people who never did have the chance to fill them out; we'll start
by making sure I have one for everyone).
How this works is that I shuffle the cards and deal them out. The
person whose name comes up is invited to say whatever she likes
about the subject at issue, or to pass (she can just pass, or she
can say she'd like her card put back in the deck so she'll have
another chance later). Usually the way it works is like a "round,"
in which the speaker gets to say what she likes, and responses are
saved until everyone's spoken (I often suggest that if you want to
respond to someone you should make a note of it). In this case, I'm
going to do a round on each question.
When your name comes up, what I'm looking for is for you to indicate
what struck you as important or interesting about the responses to
the question that you read on the forum.
I'll go through the cards until about ten people have spoken, and
then open the floor for discussion. We'll see where that takes us.
There will be an assignment for Thursday, but the prompt won't be up
until after class; I don't want to make the decision about what
comes next until I see where we are at the end of the discussion.
Look for a Prompt #10 this evening.