Transformative Texts Film Series -

By Alannah Murphy

On Monday, October 3, the first movie showing in the Transformative Text Film Series was held in Regan Hall’s lounge. The event was arranged by history professor and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs in the School of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Seth Smith, and Associate Professor of Practice and Director of the Cornerstone Scholars Program, Dr. Taryn Okuma. This film series was created for the Cornerstone program, a first-year student program at Catholic University. It is a new living and learning community that has two main goals: to provide students with a humanities-based education that prepares them for leadership in any field and to foster that sense of leadership.

“We have identified students from a variety of majors who were also strong leaders as high school students and wanted to continue to challenge themselves as college students,” Okuma said.

According to Smith, another one of Cornerstone’s goals is to build community and tie life in the dorm in with the Cornerstone classes.

“A big part of the Cornerstone program is not just what we do in the classroom. What matters to us a lot is making this a living community and connecting what we are doing inside the classroom with outside the classroom,” Dr. Smith said.

The movie that was shown was Captain America: Winter Soldier and it was chosen because it deals with similar themes that are covered in Dr. Smith’s Transformative Text class.

“What we are dealing with right now is the question of civil conflict and civil protests. We are reading Julius Caesar and Caesar deals with the question: what can the State do or what can a person do to ensure stability and order? What is a citizen’s responsibility to the State or person overstepping their bounds and becoming a dictator?” Dr. Smith said. “Those are the same questions that Captain America: Winter Soldier covers. We thought it would be a fun and easy way to look at these questions.

Freshman nursing major and writing minior Felipe Avila attended the movie screening and says he would recommend this event to other students.

“My favorite part of the event was enjoying the company of Dean Smith, Dr.Okuma, and other Cornerstone students. The movie itself was phenomenal, and the pizza made the film screening all the better,” Avila said.

Smith and Okuma plan to show two movies a semester.

“For the fall we are doing In America, which is about 20 years old. We will watch that at the same time we are reading Teju Cole’s Open City, which deals with the experience of being an immigrant in the United States. We look for movies that tie into what we are doing in class,” Smith said.