Associate Professor of English Patricia Bart will give a lecture in the Heritage Room on Friday at 4:30 p.m., entitled “Guns N’ Younguns: Growing up in gun culture.”
Bart will discuss the position of guns in modern culture, as well as her perspective on what gun culture really is, or should be.
“We need to refound American culture as a whole,” Bart said. “And ‘gun culture’ is a part of what we need to refound.”
Bart has a lifetime of familiarity with guns, particularly in her childhood.
Her talk will include stories of experiences in her youth such as “shooting squirrels and making stew,” which will provide both shape to her discussion and, almost certainly, great entertainment to her audience.
“I’m going to reminisce,” she said.
Bart said that these kinds of experiences are part of what she considers good gun culture, but there is much more to it. The more central parts of her discussion, however, she is saving for Friday.
Although there may be a comparatively large number of Hillsdale students who are familiar with guns, Bart suggested that the majority of the students have probably never fired a gun in their lives. These students, she said, will be “surprised at the true nature of gun culture, and they need to be surprised by it.”
She encourages those who have grown up around guns to attend as well and “lend support.”
American culture’s variety of opinions on guns have spawned a vast and confusing contemporary dialogue.
